A study: Want to reduce the number of calories consumed when you order pizza? Try cutting the pizza into smaller slices and placing it on a larger table, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the Association of Consumer Research.

By the numbers — Researchers led by Brennan Davis, from the California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, divided large pizzas into eight regular sized slices or 16 smaller slices, then placed two pies on tables just slightly larger than the pizzas, and two on tables that were much larger than the pizzas. They then invited college students to one of the tables and told them to take as much pizza as they would like to eat.

As might be expected, students eating from the pies with smaller slices ate more slices of pizza, but not twice as many. As a result, their total calorie intake was much lower than the students who ate pizza in larger slices.

But the researchers also found that students eating pizza from the larger table tended to eat less pizza than those eating from smaller tables.

On the smaller tables, the difference in size between the larger and smaller slices was more apparent, so students tended to eat more of the smaller slices. But for those eating from the larger tables, the size difference was less apparent, and they tended to eat the same number of slices, large or small.

Bottom line — Using visual cues can influence the amount of food you eat. Students eating pizza sliced into 16ths and placed on a larger table ate nearly half the calories of students eating pizza sliced into eighths from a smaller table.