The Amazing Japanese Diet Goggles

Japanese reseachers just presented the latest gadget to help you lose weight: diet goggles that magnify your food. They may even work, you’d just have to want to wear them in public.

Diet Goggles?

I have said it before: whenever I think I have seen the weirdest idea in the fight against obesity, someone comes up with something I wouldn’t even have dreamt of. Maybe I’m just totally unimaginative.

The most surprising thing about the diet goggles that professor Michitaka Hirose just presented an astounded public is that they may actually work. Previous research has shown that smaller portions look bigger on smaller plates and people eat less. On the other end, people tend to eat more when the plates are bigger, because then the portions look smaller.

The diet goggles use a similar principle, having a computer identify the food in your hand and magnifying it, but leaving your hand in its normal size. Professor Hirose explains it in this video:

Celery Looking Like Chocolate

The device even has a setting that tells your eyes there is some chocolate or another sweet in your hands and not the healthy food you are actually holding. This supposedly can trick you into thinking that instead of eating a piece of stringy celery, you are devouring a bite of Cadbury’s finest.

Are you ready to buy now? All you need is a bit of patience, as the diet goggles as of now aren’t available for sale. And, oh, being able to stand being seen in public wearing this contraption.

Picture courtesy of Petr Kratchovil.