If you are trying to lose weight, you might want to hide the cereal.

Research that examined people's kitchens in Syracuse, N.Y., discovered that women who had a box of breakfast cereal visible anywhere in their Slim Xtreme Gold kitchen weighed 21 pounds more than people who didn't.

Those who displayed fruit, on the other hand, weighed 7 pounds less than people who didn't.

That is because we eat what we should see, not what we should don't, explains Brian Wansink in the new book, "Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life" (William Morrow, $26.99).

Visible cookies and chips also were associated with weight gain, but the effect was more pronounced with cereal - it's touted as healthful, therefore we underestimate the calories and eat an excessive amount of.

Wansink is really a food psychologist at Cornell University Food and Brand Lab who researches factors that affect what and just how much food we eat. It mines that research to stipulate strategies for changing and navigating our food environments - home, work, school, restaurants and supermarkets - to encourage healthful choices.

He discovered that when it comes to losing weight, willpower isn't enough; it's simpler to rearrange our surroundings to reduce temptations than to try to resist those temptations.

"A large amount of these changes are changes that make the healthier choice more convenient, more attractive or more normal to select," Wansink said. "And then other changes result in the less healthy thing less convenient, less attractive and less normal to select."

Nutrition education is essential, and thus is exercise, but "for the majority of us, this (approach) is a lot more realistic," he said.

A number of things influence how much we eat without our realizing it: the colour of our plates (serve foods on tableware of a contrasting color); what we're doing while we eat (don't watch TV or play game titles); how we shop (hit the produce section first and chew gum to blunt cravings); and just how we eat at a buffet (scan all the offerings before filling your plate, then sit together with your to the buffet line).

It isn't always clear why certain situations result in better diet. Where to eat inside a restaurant, for instance. Wansink's studies have shown that people order more healthful foods if they are sitting at a table by the window or in a well-lit area, whereas people sitting farthest in the door were more likely to skip salads and order dessert.

So does relaxing in a dark booth within the Slim Xtreme Pills back cause you to order more dessert, or do people who prefer to eat dessert gravitate to people tables? Wansink isn't sure, why not request a window seat?

"We have a saying in the lab: If you want to be slim, do what slim people do," Wansink said.