DOES SIZE MATTER ?

Dolores Van Bourgondien, ANP-BC, RN,MSN, BA, MA

October 2nd, 2013

Does size matter

• Portion Distortion• Portion Vs Serving• Portion Control• Tips for Healthy Eating• Common Equivalents• Journaling

Portion Distortion

Portion Distortion

Portion Distortion• Supersized worldAverage portion sizes have grown so much over the past 20 years that sometimes the plate arrives and there's enough food for two or even three people on it. Growing portion sizes are changing what Americans think of as a "normal" portion at home too. We call it portion distortion.

Portion DistortionServing Sizes Then and Now1950's portion 2003 portionFrench fries 2.4 ounces up to 7.1 ouncesFountain soda 7.0 ounces 12 to 64 ouncesHamburger patty1.6 ouncesup to 8.0 oz. Hamburger sandwich 3.9 ounces 4.4 to 12.6 oz.Muffin 3.0 ounces 6.5 ouncesPasta serving 1.5 cups 3.0 cupsChocolate bar 1 ounce 2.6 to 8 ounces

Portion Vs Serving

• Portions and Servings: What’s the Difference?

• A portion is the amount of food that you choose to eat for a meal or snack. It can be big or small—you decide.

• A serving is a measured amount of food or drink, such as one slice of bread or one cup (eight ounces) of milk.

Portion Vs Serving

• Many foods that come as a single portion actually contain multiple servings. The Nutrition Facts label on packaged foods—on the backs of cans, sides of boxes, etc.— tells you the number of servings in the container.

• For example, look at the label of a 20-ounce soda (usually consumed as one portion). It has 2.5 servings in it. A 3-ounce bag of chips, which some would consider a single portion, contains 3 servings.

Portion Vs Serving Label

Ice Cream

Portion Control

Divide the Plate• Before Eating, Divide The Plate

Here’s a simple rule to portion a plate properly: Divide it in half. Automatically fill one side with fruits or vegetables, leaving the rest for equal parts protein and starch. This way, you begin to see what a properly balanced meal looks like. Spaghetti and meatballs? Steak and potatoes? They’re only half a meal, incomplete without fruits and vegetables.

Preportion• Pre-Portion Tempting

TreatsThe bigger the package, the more food you’ll pour out of it. When two groups were given half- or 1-pound bags of M&Ms to eat while watching TV, those given the 1-pound bag ate nearly twice as much.

Portion Control

Mindless Munch• Head Off The Mindless

MunchFive minutes after eating at an Italian restaurant, 31 percent of people couldn’t remember how much bread they ate. If you’re worried you might do the same, have the bread removed from the table.

Plate Downize• If you’re one of the 54 percent of

Americans who eat until their plates are clean, make sure those plates are modestly sized. On a standard 8- to 10-inch dinner plate, a portion of spaghetti looks like a meal. On a 12- to 14-inch dinner plate, it looks meager, so you’re likely to dish out a bigger portion to fill the plate. When researchers gave study participants 34- or 17-ounce bowls and told them to help themselves to ice cream, those with the bigger bowls dished out 31 percent more ice cream.

Portion Control

Limit Choices• The more options you have,

the more you want to try. In one study, researchers gave two groups jellybeans to snack on while they watched a movie. One group got six colors, neatly divided into compartments; jellybeans for the other group were jumbled together. Those given a mix ate nearly two times more.

Wield your Power• Most homes have a

“nutritional gatekeeper” who controls 72 percent of the food eaten by everyone else. The person who chooses food, buys it, and prepares it wields power. If that’s you, take advantage of it.

Portion Control

Avoid a see food diet• Office workers who kept

candy in clear dishes on their desks dipped in for a sample 71 percent more often than those who kept their candy out of sight.

Turn Off TV• The Vast Wasteland leads to vast

waists. It’s not just the couch-sitting. TV distracts you from how much you’re eating, and the more you watch, the more you’re likely to eat. In a study comparing how much popcorn viewers ate during either a half-hour show or an hour-long show, those who watched more television ate 28 percent more popcorn.

Portion Control

Think before Drink• . Pour cranberry juice into

two glasses of equal volume: one short and wide, the other tall and thin. Most people pour 19 percent more cranberry juice in the short glass because the eye is a poor judge of volume in relation to height and width.

Serve good for you foods • Not all portion-control strategies

are about eating less. You can have as much as you want of some foods. Place the foods you want your family to eat more of―salads and vegetable sides―within easy reach on the dining table. In a soon-to-be-published study, Wansink found people who kept baby carrots in plain sight ate 25 percent more during a day.

Portion Control – Common equivalents

Recommended Servings per day

JOURNALING

Journaling for weight loss

• Keeps you accountable• Tracks intake • Tracks Exercise (output)• Aids in weight loss• Food and Mood

Take home message

• Not all servings are created equal• Take 1 week to measure all foods• Journal• Be the gate keeper for good• Exercise Daily

QUESTIONS?