Seconds or Really Fourths?

Portion size appears to be the new food related hot topic in the media these days. As much as I have "enjoyed" learning a tremendous amount about the poor QUALITY of the processed food we are consuming in this country I am glad the focus has shifted to QUANTITY. Many times when I am out to dinner I am awe-struck by the huge portion sizes that we are all consuming. At any given meal at a restaurant we are most likely satisfying a large proportion of our daily calorie requirement (approx. 1500-2000 calories/day). Now that I have become more conscious of my nutrition choices, as I strive to live by my own advice, I have begun to wonder why portion sizes have become so large as well as why we all clean our plate most of the time.

One of the main lessons I have learned by delving into this nutrition world is that half the battle, if not more, is psychological. The whole concept of "Super Size" started in the fast food arena but it has quickly expanded into the whole food world (except those expensive French restaurants that give you a few fork fulls and leave you hungry). The etiology of increasing portion size stemmed from the fact that we all theoretically have a "fixed stomach" so we can only consume about 1500 pounds of food per year (I would bet this number is much higher now). Based on this concept the rate of growth of the food industry would only be 1% per year, which was not tolerable to Wall Street. Therefore, the food industry had to find a way for people to either consume more food or spend more money on the same food. The obvious choice was the latter.

Since the vendors and manufacturers understood that psychologically people may feel self-conscious about going for seconds they increased the size of the portions at a small cost to the consumer. For example, at a movie it is always tempting to get the Medium or Jumbo Popcorn and/or soda for only 25 cents more despite it being much more than we originally desired. It is not hard to fathom that this extra 25 cents/customer over the tens of thousands that see movies/day adds up to a nice sum of money. The fascinating point is that despite this larger popcorn or soda being more than we initially anticipated consuming most of us will finish it all. We tend to finish whatever food/drink is in front of us because we paid for it so we don't want to waste it and it temporarily makes us feel good (remember the release of serotonin and dopamine in response to sugar). The portion size issue goes way beyond restaurants and movie theaters since even the pre-packaged foods we purchase are misleading when it comes to quantity.

The New York Times recently ran a story about the FDA weighing in on the issue regarding serving size. The FDA wants to encourage manufacturers of food to post vital nutrition information, such as calories, on the front of boxes to better inform consumers but this highlighted the long standing issue that serving sizes are way too small. Therefore, the calorie counts that go with a specific serving size are misleading. For example, one serving size of a pre-packaged muffin may be half a muffin or one serving size of Tostitos may be 6 chips. Now, who eats only 6 chips! Most of us probably eat 1/4-1/2 a large bag of Tostitos which could be almost 1,000 calories (1/2 of a days requirement). This extends to the problem of childhood obesity because one serving size of cereal may be a reasonable 150 calories but the problem is that one serving may only be 3/4 a cup of cereal. In reality, children are most likely eating 2-3 servings of sugar cereals for breakfast. The classic example is the bag of chips or cookies that are so proud in stating they are only 100calories but in reality the whole bag may be 150 calories in total. The article elucidated the point that an inaccurate serving size makes people think they are consuming fewer calories than they actually are which may end up hindering their health.

There are so many barriers to remaining healthy these days. I am hopeful that as these issues continue to come to the forefront on a national level there will be positive implications for the health of this country. However, in the meantime we all need to educate ourselves and strive for our best health.

Over the last few weeks I have been focused on controlling the quantity of food I consume. One crucial step, as we discussed above, is to read the labels on food products with a focus on serving size so we are aware of how many calories we are consuming. Another approach I have taken in restaurants is to separate a "reasonable" amount of food for the meal and aim to take something home as leftovers. I am reading a fantastic book right now called "The End of Overeating" by David Kessler, MD who is a former commissioner of the U.S. FDA and his recommendation is to eat 1/2 of the usual amount at a meal and if you are satisfied for 4 hours then that is sufficient. If not, then next time try to eat 3/4 of the usual amount and so on. He states that a full meal should keep you full for about 4 hours and a good snack should satisfy you for about 2 hours.

I imagine that eating a smaller amount of a highly processed food is better for our health than eating a lot of that same food. However, as we all know this is much easier said then done.

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