Portion Size and Overeating

Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments

I saw an interesting study cited over on Dr. Mirkin’s site that suggests that portion size has a huge effect on if you will get huge- or huger, if that is a word. This really makes sense since we see portion sizes steadily increasing at fast food places and the size of people is getting steadily bigger too.

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Whether or not you are overweight, portion sizes of food are a major factor in determining how much you eat. In a recent study, researchers at Pennsylvania State University in University Park measured how much normal and overweight people ate (Obesity, June 2007). They then fed these people fifty percent larger portions of food at every meal. Both overweight and normal weight people increased their intake of food equally and they continued to eat far more food for the duration of the study.

You might expect that when people overeat, they would eventually reach a point where they feel full and stop taking in too much food. However, this has not been shown to be the case. When people are offered large portion sizes, they continue to eat more food and it doesn’t matter whether they were fat or thin when they received the larger portions.

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So do the right things- eat 6 small meals a day so you are never feeling starved, and order/eat smaller portions. Here is a good example- There is a fast food SW/Mexican style chain here in Atlanta called Moe’s. Most of the menu items are huge. Really huge. So a friend of mine suggested getting the small children’s size burrito and it was perfect. Way too much for most kids, but perfect for an adult. That just shows you that we start overfeeding our kids  early in life too!