Eastern professor Jim Painter will appear on the CBS’s “The Early Show” Friday morning because of Katie Couric’s interest in his research on food portions.

CBS had originally planned to air Painter’s documentary “Portion Size Me” last November, but the piece never aired.

When Couric started doing her current series on obesity, she remembered Painter’s story and asked that he be included.

CBS flew Painter and Megan McCallister of the Health Education Resource Center to New York Sunday to record the show.

Painter, chair of the Family and Consumer Science department, interviewed for the segment Monday morning, did an experiment Monday afternoon then hopped in a plane and few back that night.

“It was a whirlwind trip,” he said. He added the trip took about 23 hours total.

The experiment took place at an ice cream shop to replicate a recent study by Painter called, “Ice Cream Illusions: Bowls, Spoons, and Self-Served Portions.”

The study found that people eat smaller portions when they use smaller utensils.

“People are gaining weight now because they’re simply losing track of how much they eat,” Painter said.

Painter gave seven people small bowls and then another group larger bowls, without telling them. The group with the smaller bowls ended up eating only half the amount – 6 oz. of ice cream that the group with the later bowls ate – 12 oz.

“You can be satisfied with a smaller bowl,” Painter said of the experiment.

Painter said his research could be used as a tool to help people lose weight.

“The Early Show” airs locally from 8 to 9 a.m. on WCIA-TV in Champaign. Two 10-minute segments from the show are also aired earlier in the morning during WCIA’s local “The Morning Show” at 7:15 a.m. and 7:45 a.m.

Painter plans to continue his research at Eastern instead of the University of Illinois. He wants to investigate how other factors – such as an aggressive server, or eating with people who are pigging out – influence how much a person might eat.

“I think there are a lot of environmental things that affect how much we eat,” he said. “The more we can control those environment factors, we’ll have a greater chance of maintaining our weight.”