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Learn
to say 'Downsize my meal!'
Sept. 14, 2006
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
Having
trouble controlling your weight? Maybe you suffer from portion
distortion.
Two studies published this month suggest that what many of
us now view as normal portions may actually be supersized.
Take college students, for example. In a study published this
month in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association,
students ages 16 to 26 at a large northeastern university
were asked to serve themselves what they considered to be
typical portions of several breakfast, lunch and dinner foods.
Regardless of how hungry they were or how much they liked
a particular food, students took portions of several foods
– cornflakes, milk on cereal, orange juice and fruit
salad – that were significantly larger than those chosen
in a similar study conducted in 1984.
The study authors surmise that familiarity with huge portions
at restaurants and large single-serving packaged foods may
be leading more of us to consider these amounts to be typical
or “normal.”
A second study, published this month in the Annals of Internal
Medicine, came to a similar conclusion.
Researchers asked people to guess the number of calories in
15 different sized fast-food meals. The study found that as
the size of the meal increased, both normal weight and overweight
people had a harder time accurately guessing the number of
calories they contained. People consistently underestimated
the number of calories in large meals. Who bought the largest
meals, according to the study? The heaviest people.
What can you do to protect yourself against portion distortion?
Plenty.
* Consciously downside. At restaurants, order an appetizer
as your entrée, take a luncheon-portion meal or ask
for a half portion of a dinner entrée. If half portions
aren’t available, split an entrée with a companion
or plan to take half home. Think of it this way: Your food
was half the cost and you have a quick meal ready for the
next day. At home, switch to a smaller serving plate.
* Make your response automatic. Make it a habit to order less
than you think you want. More times than not, the portion
will be adequate – and then some. The worst case: You
can always order more if what you got wasn’t enough.
* Read labels on packaged foods. Check the number of calories
per serving as well as the number of servings the package
contains. A frozen entrée may, in fact, contain two
servings, and a bag of chips may contain six. Multiply the
number of calories by the number of servings you would realistically
eat at one sitting to get some perspective on the actual calorie
cost of your meal or snack.
* Stop before you are full. Most of us eat until we have a
full – sometimes even painfully full – feeling
in our stomachs. It’s our signal that we’ve had
“enough.” Stop at 3/4 full instead. Don’t
let yourself get to the “I’m so full I could pop”
stage.
And here’s an exercise for you. The National Heart,
Blood and Lung Institute has developed two fun, interactive
quizzes available online at http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/portion/index.htm.
The quizzes ask you to guess how many calories there are in
today’s typical portions of foods compared to portions
of the same foods 20 years ago. You’ll also find out
how much physical activity it takes to burn the calories from
typical servings of foods.
Downsizing your meals is a good way to regain better control
over your diet. With a little attention aimed at your meal
portions, you can save some money, improve your health and
feel better.
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