Scaling Up Portion Size

 

On April 15, 1955, McDonald's opened its very first franchised restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. The hamburgers it sold were 1.6 ounces of ground beef. You could add a 2.4 ounce serving of fries and a "large" 7 ounce Coke if you liked. Today that would net you a half pound of beef, 6 ounces of fries and a 30 ounce soda. This sort of serving size creep is by no stretch limited to McDonalds, or to fast food restaurants generally. A plate of Mexican food is 27% larger. Snacks, whether they be potato chips, pretzels or crackers, are 60 percent larger. In 1970, Americans took in an average of 2,160 calories per day. Today, it has skyrocketed to 2,673 daily calories per person. We are now eating 20-25 percent more calories than we did in 1970.

Both plate sizes and portion sizes have expanded before our very eyes. With the introduction of processed, shelf-ready food in combination with new agriculture policies, food became cheaper and easier to get our hands on than it was in the 1970s. And today food is everywhere. If you combine this with a society that is always looking to get more bang for their buck, you end up with price wars over who can give you the most food for the least amount of money.

The results are predictable. In 2018, the age-adjusted prevalence of obesity in American adults was 42.4%, and there were no significant differences between men and women among all adults or by age group. The age-adjusted prevalence of severe obesity in adults was 9.2% and was higher in women than in men.

So we are getting bigger (you can't say fatter anymore I guess) right along with the amount of food we are consuming. Unsurprisingly, the more food we are served at one time, the more food we eat. This fact is not lost on the marketing departments of food providers either. If ordering a Medium is your habit, it is probably yesterdays Large and tomorrow's Small.

And it is not only a problem when eating out either. Portions of home made meals are swelling too.

So what can you do to defend yourself? Here are a few tips from Dr. Wendy Scinta, MD, a nationally recognized expert on adult and childhood obesity treatment, and the current president-elect of the Obesity Medicine Association.

- Try to serve or order protein, such as meat or fish, or plant-based food such as tofu, over carbohydrates such as pasta, rice and potatoes.

- When serving food at home, use smaller plates for the main course, and larger ones for the salad. It is well proven that the size of your plate influences the amount of food you end up eating.

- Limit eating out to no more than once per week, and try to cook more healthy meals at home. This may be one of the few silver linings of the Covid pandemic. You may even discover you enjoy it.

- When eating out, do not hesitate to ask for a to-go box and take half of your meal home.

Most of all, increase your awareness. Be aware of portion sizes. Be aware of how hungry you are or aren't. Be aware of what it is you are eating. Being overweight, let alone obese, leads to a long menu of health problems. How do we afford a society where 2/3 of us are?