Portions drift upward through imperceptible changes — serving dish creep, plate size inflation, normalization to others’ portions. Use smaller dishes: research shows people eat less from smaller plates without feeling deprived because the Delboeuf illusion makes the same food look like more. This environmental fix can reduce consumption by 20-30% without ongoing effort.
This companion explores how portions creep, the visual perception research, environmental fixes beyond plate size, and why environment beats willpower. (4 min read)
Known defects on this page:
- em dashes were set without spaces The site's style spaces its dashes; 351 pages carried them un-spaced, and every one was corrected.
- more pages still describe willpower as a draining tank More pages describe willpower as a tank that empties — the same unsettled research, found by searching for the claim instead of the citation
- We overuse the em dash in our prose. We use the em dash more often than easy reading allows, and we are changing how we punctuate.
Written by AI, directed and approved by me. How this is made →