Sunny Health

Japan’s new dieting tool – food-enlarging shades, works on a similar principle – by appealing to your sight and thus your brain, making you think that you’re eating more. The lenses on the shades make your food look 1.5 times larger, so you feel fuller faster.

Researchers did an experiment, and found that those who wore this food-enlarging gadget ate 9.3% less than those who didn’t wear them.

This does sound like a healthy long-term solution of controlling one’s diet. Humans are habitual creatures. When we get accustomed to eating less, we will continue to eat less willingly, even without wearing those glasses or nagging ourselves into self-control.

Then there is yet another type of glasses, also invented in Japan, that claims to be able to manipulate the smell and taste of food. Which means that you can eat a bowl of bland soup noodles, and be duped into thinking that’s a bowl of laksa when the glasses feed you the smell and image of laksa. This reminds me of Willy Wonka’s magical chewing gum in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, in which chewing the gum allows you to taste and feel the sensation of an entire dinner course going down your throat. I wonder if they got inspired from this wonder gum. In any case, this invention sounds a little unbelievable, but if it can be pulled off, it will be great respite for many people with conditions that prevent them from eating their favourite foods.

There are no known statistics about how effective they are, although it doesn't hurt to try, since Johnny Depp is often seen wearing blue shades, and he's got a svelte figure. If you don't want to go through the hassle of buying and shipping them from overseas, just tape blue cellophane paper over your glasses.

But ultimately, diet control is still determined by your self-discipline. After all, nothing’s actually stopping you from removing those glasses from your face when you’re feeling ravenous.

Written by: Ng Mei Yi