Americans aren’t just supersizing their portions in fast-food restaurants, they’re doing it in their own kitchens.
In a new study, researchers looked at such foods as hamburgers, burritos, tacos, french fries, sodas, ice cream, pie, cookies and salty snacks and found that the portions got bigger between the 1970s and the 1990s, regardless of whether people ate in or out.
It is no surprise it is happening at fast-food restaurants; it was McDonald’s that help put the word “supersize” into the American lexicon. But Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said the practice has caused Americans to suffer portion distortion at home.
“We’re getting so used to these big portion sizes when we eat out that when we go home we forget what a normal portion is,” said Wootan, the center’s nutrition policy director.
Homemade burgers beefed up to 8.4 ounces in 1996 from 5.7 ounces in 1977, while fast-food hamburgers grew to 7.2 ounces from 6.1 ounces during the same period. At restaurants other than fast-food ones, hamburgers declined to 5 ounces in 1996 from 5.3 ounces in 1977, according to the study.
