if you want to lose weight, eat front of the mirror

A new study has found that watching yourself eat something unhealthy, like a slice of chocolate cake, can make that food seem less tasty. And that, in turn, might make you eat less.

Ata Jami, a marketing professor at the University of Central Florida who studies consumer behavior and decision-making, looked at whether mirrors affected how two groups of undergraduate students ate.

Under the guise of a taste test, all were asked to choose between a piece of chocolate cake (a common supermarket brand) and a container of fruit salad (from a can). Half of the 185 students were randomly chosen to sit in a room facing a mirror. The other half were put in a space where they couldn’t see themselves. After sampling their selection, participants were asked questions about the food and if they’d want to have it again.

Those in the room with the mirror were told it was part of a different experiment about fashion and couldn’t be moved. “We didn’t want them to be suspicious of the mirror,” Jami said.

The students eating cake in front of the mirror, it turned out, liked the dessert less than those who couldn’t see their reflection. There was no such difference for the fruit-salad students.