Smart Glasses Fool the Brain into Feeling Full with Less Food

If you’re searching for a modern, easy way to diet and don’t care too much about appearances, the new Meta Cookie+ glasses from Tokyo University in Japan might be for you.

These dieting glasses feature a screen that magnifies the image of your food by 50%, tricking you into thinking you’ve eaten more than you actually have. But they’re more than just fancy magnifying glasses. They also release small bursts of scent while you eat, making bland food taste and smell more appealing to trick your brain.

The results are impressive—trials showed that people ate 9.3% less food when using these glasses.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first attempt at creating slimming glasses. A Japanese company previously made aviator-style glasses with blue-tinted lenses to help suppress appetite.

Will we see these glasses on the market soon? That’s still unclear, and it’s hard to imagine them becoming popular just yet. The concept is interesting, and people might buy into it in theory, but until they look more subtle and sophisticated, it’s unlikely people will wear them in public.

The challenge is that you’d need to wear the glasses all the time. If you only put them on when you’re about to eat, you’d already know what the food looks and smells like, making it hard to trick your brain. Plus, even if it fools your brain for a bit, your stomach will eventually catch on.

Dieting, like quitting smoking, requires more than just a tool—it needs willpower and mental strength. So, for now, traditional diet methods and self-discipline are still very much in play.