« Calling All Camera-Toting Foodies! | Main | Veal Cheeks with Mashed Purple Potatoes, Roasted Carrots, Reduction Sauce »

I am definitely guilty of eating a lot more than I need to rather than taking home less than a full meal's worth.

Why do restaurant's have to follow these guidelines? Can they not serve as much or as little as they want?

Posted by: Barzelay at August 2, 2006 8:39 PM

Restaurants at this point don't have to follow the guidelines - they're just recommendations. They could possibly turn into regulations later, but not yet. The point is that it's beneficial to our citizens (who the FDA serve) to make it easier for them to stay healthy. Given the obesity epidemic in our country, we need smaller portion sizes so that people don't overeat just to finish their oversize meal. They would still need the willpower to order the smaller size in the first place, but having the option of a smaller portion would help them in their attempts to not be obese. Make sense?

Posted by: Cara Bohon at August 2, 2006 10:16 PM

I appreciate the FDA's concern for the average American's expanding waistline. And the idea of offering both half and full portions are clever and would make the dining experience more convenient (doggy bags are sometimes so troublesome).

But obesity, for the most part, boils down to plain discipline and common sense. If you know the next few mouthfuls are totally unneccessary, don't eat them. Gluttony is just as bad wastage, if not worse, than not finishing your meal. These recommendations ought to be promoted alongside a nationwide media campaign that touts a healthy approach to food and fitness.

If you really don't want those last few mouthfuls to go in the garbage, get them to-go and give them to a homeless person. They'd likely need it a lot more.

Posted by: Natasha D'Souza at August 3, 2006 2:48 PM

I study eating disorders and obesity. We've seen that food environment, including portion sizes at restaurants, has a large impact on obesity. This food environment includes the fact that portions at most restaurants are larger than most people "ought" to eat in a sitting in order to maintain their weight. Common sense to you and me is quite different than common sense to those with less education and less exposure to better meal planning. I wholeheartedly agree that a nationwide education program to teach about healthy food and fitness would be good, but it's not the whole story. Small steps are necessary to break the habits that already exist, and their common sense comes from their environment full of large portions and fatty foods - so it may not seem that bad to them to eat too much food. In fact, they may not even know it's "too much." I also study brain response to food in the fMRI scanner, and there are people with significant brain response differences when they see, receive, think about food - so it's much more than just deciding not to eat those last few mouthfuls - they have to fight a much stronger response/drive in their brain to keep eating. This FDA recommendation will simply help them to not have to stop in the heat of the moment when the food is on their plate and they have already eaten too much, but rather they will be able to order less to begin with and thus not be tempted with it right in front of them (with their brain response strongly urging them to keep eating). I do believe with small steps to break habits and changes in food environments to keep less tempting things away, people can overcome and even change this brain response, but we as a society have to help them with that - and this is where the FDA recommendations come in.

Also, regarding the idea to feed the homeless - this works great for those of you in large cities, but other places don't have homeless people on their way home from every restaurant, so this becomes a much larger effort (ie, seek out the homeless in order to give them your few bites of pasta). But for those who have this option - I think it sounds great.

Posted by: Cara Bohon at August 3, 2006 3:24 PM

Thanks for elaborating on this issue. But do you think offering smaller portions would really help all that much? Granted it's a small step, but I feel there could be better steps taken by the food-service industry. I think a multi-lateral approach is vital to changing people's eating behaviours.

If someone really does like to eat a lot more than necessary owing to their overriding brain responses, then don't you think they will go ahead and order more than just one item, once they see how much smaller their original order is?

I know I'm coming from a place of bias owing to my cultural conditioning where food receives a certain amount of deference, appreciation, and respect. Wastefulness and gluttony were just not tolerated and I know a lot of it had to do with the fact that my parents witnessed abject poverty when they were growing up in India. It's hard to avoid no matter how sheltered or privileged you may be and I saw it first-hand whenever we vacationed there.

There are some other thoughts that I will articulate at a later time.

Posted by: Natasha D'Souza at August 3, 2006 3:42 PM

The smaller portion sizes won't help those who aren't already trying to help themselves, but for those people struggling with their weight and trying...it's one small thing we can do to help them. For those people, it's the food right in front of them that's much harder to resist than the idea of more food before they have ordered. I guess that's my reason for supporting it. It has the potential to help people fight obesity, which helps them much more than it could hurt anyone else.

Posted by: Cara Bohon at August 3, 2006 4:17 PM

I'd like to take a spin in your fMRI scanner, because I'm definitely one of those people who will keep eating until my plate is clean or I am in pain.

Part of it is my aversion to waste. Another part of it maybe is social training. Do you know anything about people who eat as a sort of nervous tick when eating with others? For a short period of time a little while ago, when I was really making an effort to cut back on what I ate, I refused to eat in a social situation unless the people I was with were also eating.

I think a big part of obesity comes from eating because it is a psychological trigger for fun. People eat when they are bored, they eat when they are sad, they eat when they are happy. For some reason we associate eating with happiness, and therefore eat because we think it will make us happy or fulfilled when we are bored or feeling empty (spiritually).

Same thing with drugs. A big reason a lot of people smoke marijuana is because it's something to do when you're bored that equals automatic fun, without having to put forth any effort into doing something that would be enriching as well as fun.

Posted by: Chris Santoro at August 3, 2006 6:11 PM

I don't know about the nervous tic thing, but I could see it - kinda like fidgeting... And the social eating is like smoking and drinking, I think. My current project is looking at the "eat when you're sad" notion, so I'll refer to my publication someday when that happens :). I don't know the answers to all your questions - but your theories all make a lot of sense and fit in with what I do know. We're definitely addressing the bored and sad thing in our prevention program, so hopefully that works.

Posted by: Cara Bohon at August 3, 2006 6:48 PM

Oh, tell me more about this prevention program or where I can read more about it. I'm awfully curious.

Posted by: Natasha D'Souza at August 3, 2006 7:45 PM

I agree that portion sizes have started to get out of hand (especially at fast food restaurants. The last time I went to Wendy's they added a combo size larger than the traditional biggie size and the size of the large drink blew my mind. It was on the verge of being called a bucket). While I support the guidelines,I would be very against any sort of regulations that imposed portion sizes onto restaurants. Not to recklessly extrapolate here, but couldn't something such as alcohol consumption regulations not be far behind?

Posted by: Adam Rugg at August 3, 2006 10:32 PM

Interestingly enough, last night I went to Cold Stone to get some ice cream, and using restraint, ordered the medium (retardedly named the "Love It" size, which I did not want to say) size ice cream. The lady making it instead made and charged me for the large size, something I didn't notice until I walked away. And like I said I tend to do, I ate the whole thing, because it was there.

Posted by: Chris Santoro at August 4, 2006 6:07 PM

The thing about restaurant portion sizes is that cost also plays a big role. If people are paying a fixed amount, getting less food will simply not be tolerated. They'll have to charge less. And because of economies of scale, any reduction in food quantity that is accompanied by a proportional reduction in price will always lead to lower profits. Relating this to portion control, the same goal could be accomplished by serving everything a la carte, and just raising the prices on all of it. People would order less just because of their unwillingness to pay.

I agree that ultimately, lowering the portion size would have a positive effect. In particular, what I think of as a "serving," even when I'm trying to limit my food intake, is at least three times what the FDA considers a serving. If I eat an FDA rec sized meal, I feel like all I've had is a snack. And I know that that has little to do with physiology (it has some to do with it--I do have a robust metabolism), and a lot to do with conditioning. Mom's meals were large, and there was a sort of pride in taking larger portions when I was growing up. Adults ate larger portions, so when I ate them, it was like I was more mature.

But breaking people's habits won't work if you're just pissing them off by not giving them what they think of as a complete meal. In many cases, I place an order knowing that I'm going to take home a full meal of leftovers. Sometimes that's the only way I can justify the cost of a particular restaurant. For instance, Amerigo in Nashville. I would usually get Chicken Tuscany, and I'd eat half of it and take it home. Even though it was more expensive than other meals might be, it was roughly equally to the price of two other meals.

Posted by: Barzelay at August 6, 2006 7:49 PM

Interesting debate going on over at Evolving Excellence on portion sizes...

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2007/05/lean_diets_and_.html

Posted by: Ken at May 20, 2007 6:15 PM