Use Psychology to Lose
Weight - Dieters Can Learn From This Study - Smaller Portions Can
Translate To Smaller Meals
July 30th 2006
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Portion Size |
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Researchers from Pennsylvania say that a meal size has a lot to do with
psychology. The size may depend on the size of the plate or package or
what is served. This may help explain how culture has a lot to do with
obesity.
For instance, in France the food package size of yogurt is a little over
half-the-size of the American counterparts. The researchers say that
the French don’t eat two packages of food; they just accept the one
package as the size of a meal.
The researchers used environmental cues to manipulate people’s ideas of
how big a food unit is. They put a bowl of M&Ms on a table of an
upscale apartment building with a sign that read “Eat Your Fill. Please
use the spoon to serve yourself." They varied the size of the spoon
from a quarter cup to a tablespoon.
On days when the spoon was a quarter cup, people took more. They
repeated the experiment in a snacking area with 80 small Tootsie Rolls
or 20 big ones. Over a 10 day period they found that people took more
by weight when the larger Tootsie Rolls were left out. The same outcome
was seen with large and small pretzels.
This information may help dieters. Food companies have begun to
produce 100-calorie packages. A recent study from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, says that super-sizing meals has an added cost in
health care associated with it.
In this newer study, Andrew Geier of the University of Pennsylvania says
food companies should display the serving or portion sizes more
prominently on the package. He works with overweight patients and tells
them when ordering in a restaurant to ask the server to cut the meal in
half and box-up one portion to take home.
Geier says the portion size strategy has its limits. Associated press
reporter, Malcolm Ritter said “He had one dining hall at his university
provide 10-ounce glasses for soda, and a second provide 16-ounce
glasses. He predicted that students at the first hall would drink less
soda. In fact, they drank more.”
Only later did he
find out what went wrong. Geier said "They were taking two glasses at a
time. I guess
I went below what is culturally construed as a unit of soda."
Marsha Quinn
Writer
Books on Dieting
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