A few small, simple changes can make a big difference when it comes to keeping people from overeating.

During a presentation Thursday at the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project kickoff, Brian Wansink, food psychology professor and director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, shared his findings of years of research about how changing a person’s environment can have a large impact on how much he or she consumes.

Wansink, the author of New York Times best-selling book “Mindless Eating,” said there are many eating myths out there regarding how the size of plates, bowls and glasses influences how much people eat.

“We believe we are way too smart to be fooled by something as silly as a plate or bowl,” he said.

But often, people are fooled by them, he said.

He explained a few food studies he’s conducted, one of which gave five-day old popcorn to two different groups of people who were watching a movie.

For one group, he gave one-gallon sized buckets of old popcorn, and for the other, he gave two-gallon sized buckets of old popcorn.

The people with the two-gallon sized buckets of old popcorn ate more, even though the popcorn didn’t taste good.

The same is true for regular meals on plates.

When people eat out of a smaller plate, the food fills out that plate and tricks the mind into thinking a lot of food was eaten, he said. On the contrary, when people eat on larger plates and the same amount of food is put on that plate, the mind is tricked into thinking it did not eat as much food.

It’s the same for bowls and glasses.

Wansink said he conducted a survey with preschoolers that showed that when the children were given a bigger bowl they would want to have more cereal than they would if they had a smaller bowl.

Visual tricks also lead people to pour more into short, wide glasses than they would into a tall, thinner glass.

He encouraged people to use 10-inch plates, smaller bowls and tall, thin glasses.

“If you don’t want to make the changes for yourself, make them for your kids,” he said.

“It’s a whole lot easier to get rid of something than to try to remind yourself not to.”

He asked the people in the audience how they know they are done eating a meal.

Most people in America would say they know they are done eating when their plate is empty or their television show is over, he said. People should stop much earlier usually.

Wansink asked people to fill out the Active Home and Home Eating Environment checklists, which are both included as part of the Vitality Project pledge packet. The checklists will help people learn how they can set up their homes to eat fewer calories and make healthy decisions.

The Active Home Checklist asks about things such as televisions in the home and exercise.

The Home Eating Environment Checklist asks where and at what level certain foods are stored, what size of plates, bowls and glasses are used, and how many different kinds of fruits and vegetables are in the house, among other questions.

The questions bring awareness to people of their lifestyles and what small things they can do to improve, he said.

Wansink talked of several examples of people who made a simple change to their lifestyle that ended up having a domino-effect into other parts of their lives.

“These have unpredictable and positive influence we can’t even realize,” he said.