The Bigger, the Better?
by Ainsley Laing MSc.
In the last 10 years or so, we have seen the advent of "supersized" foods. And quite honestly some of the supersized products are so big they are ridiculous..and it looks like they are still getting bigger. But are these extra big products affecting the size of our bodies or is it all just hype?
I just returned from a holiday where I visited 2 countries. For the purposes of this article, I will call the countries, Country 1 and Country 2. Both Country 1 and 2 are in the same region of the world with basically the same good quality food and culturally healthy diets. Lots of fruit, veggies, lean meats simply prepared and dairy. Yet, my traveling companion and I both noticed a sizeable difference in the "fatness" of the populations of the 2 countries. What gives?
As a tourist, I ate in restaurants and therefore wasn't exposed to the normal day to day eating habits and cultural mores surrounding food and mealtimes in these countries. But one thing really stood out in the restaurants as being a possible culprit…. portion sizes.
Country 1: ENORMOUS plates of food served in the restaurants
Country 2: Small/normal sized plates of food served in the restaurants.
Up to now, I haven't paid much attention to portion sizing as a possible reason that people become overweight, but this observation peaked my interest.
So, upon returning home to my computer I did some surfing on the subject of portion sizing and weight management. Do you know that they have a name for the psychological impact of portion sizing on eating habits? It's called "unit bias".
Appearantly, there's been lots of studies to determine whether people are affected by the size of the food itself as well as the utensils and container sizes the food is in. One of my personal favorites is the M&M study. The researchers put a large jar of M&Ms out in a public area. They changed the scoopers to a different size each day. Low and behold, on the days where the smaller scoopers were used, people took fewer M&Ms. The conclusion here is that the people judged a "serving" to be whatever the size of the scooper was.
Getting back to my trip..It's interesting to observe that people of different cultures do have different ideas of what is "enough" food. For example, my traveling companion on this trip is originally from Country 1 (the one with big portions). While traveling in Country 2 after a week in Country 1, he kept commenting on how he would have to order double to get enough to eat. I noticed that in Country 1, I was so overwhelmed by the large plates of food that I started ordering only 1 item and I still ate until my stomach hurt. In Country 2, like my traveling companion, I felt the need to order more than 1 item each meal (I also put on a kilo of fat in 2 weeks!)
So, for me this idea has become much more evident. Portion sizes are a matter of perception…a perception that can be detrimental to our health and body shape. So if you are always struggling with extra fat, take a look at the size of your plates!
Sources:
"For Portion Control, Look to the Container"
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/07/30/diet.cues.ap/index.html
