One of the biggest factors in the battle with the bulge is portion size, as even healthy foods can lead to weight-gain when eaten in excess.
But what if there were ways to trick our eyes and stomach into thinking there was more on our plates than there actually was?
According to researchers at Stanford University, this is possible thanks to the Delboeuf illusion, whereby food served on a plate that has a wider rim, looks bigger.
Study participants were asked to pick between two pictures of food on a plate and say which one looked like a larger serving. When plates had wider rims, the same serving of food appeared larger than it did when it was presented on a plate with a smaller rim or no rim at all. Plates with a coloured rim also made small portions of food appear larger.
And plates aren't the only utensils that can trick our minds into eating less. A US study found that restaurant-goers who eat with larger forks consume less food and leave more on their plates than people who eat with small forks. When questioned, those who used smaller forks to eat said they felt they were not making any progress in finishing their meal or quelling their hunger pangs.
But when it comes to the size of your bowl, forget the fork findings, as bigger isn't always better! A study by the Georgia Institute of Technology revealed that people eat 31 per cent more ice cream when they eat out of a 34-ounce bowl, rather than a 17-ounce one. This is due to the fact that most people eat about 92 per cent of what they are served, so if you serve yourself more, you'll eat more.
A final trick to control over-eating could lie in what hand we use when chowing down. Recently published research shows that eating with your non-dominant hand can help to reduce the amount of food you consume.
The finding was part of a movie-theatre/popcorn study, where it was discovered that people who used their non-dominant hands ate 30 per cent less than if they used their dominant hands.
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