A team of Japanese researchers at Tokyo University have invented a pair of “slimming goggles” that make food look larger to help you eat less and thus lose weight. Sounds simple and effective, doesn’t it?

We’ve posted our share of wacky Japanese inventions,  here on Oddity Central, from the creepy anti-aging mouthpiece and the brainwave-controlled Necomimi to the poop-powered toilet bike. But this latest creation might be a bit hard to swallow, literally, because it makes food look 50% bigger. Professor Michitaka Hirose and his team of researchers at Tokyo University have created a pair of special goggles that can be set to make food look bigger or smaller, while keeping your hands and surroundings at their original sizes. This supposedly tricks you into eating less and ultimately helps you shed some of that extra weight.

According to its creators, the pair of goggles actually works. After testing them on a group of 2 men and women, the researchers found that the slimming goggles helped the subject eat 9.3% less cookies than normal, when the tasty treats were shown 50% larger. They also got an interesting result when they set the invention to reduce the size of the cookies by 33%. The people wearing the goggles ate 15% more cookies than those not wearing them.

Although the Japanese don’t really have a serious obesity problem, their invention could prove to be a godsend for the Western world, if it ever goes into production. I know I’d wear these babies if it means never having to go through diets ever again.

via The Verge