Research
Adherence
Visual cues, particularly portion size and perceived volume, significantly influence food intake and post-meal satiety, often overriding physiological feedback.
Use smaller plates and serve smaller initial portions. Be aware that visual cues like refilling bowls or large packages can trick you into eating more, regardless of your hunger levels.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Wansink et al. found that covertly re-filling a soup bowl during consumption led participants to eat 73% more soup than those whose bowl was not slowly refilled as they ate.
Why this rating
Supported by multiple studies (17-32) demonstrating large effects (e.g., 73% increase).
Source
Sensory influences on food intake control: moving beyond palatability
Keri McCrickerd et al. · Obesity Reviews · 2015
DOI 10.1111/obr.12340
narrative_reviewCited 411×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Increasing food texture (harder, chewier, or more viscous) reduces meal size and improves satiety by slowing eating rate and increasing oral processing time, independent of caloric content.Good
- Increasing taste intensity (e.g., saltiness) while maintaining palatability reduces meal intake by approximately 9% through enhanced satiation, independent of how much the food is liked.Good
- Umami taste (savoury) enhances the satiating power of protein-rich foods, leading to greater compensation at subsequent meals, but has no effect on carbohydrate-rich or low-energy foods.Moderate
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