No plate is safe from enormous portions, and people are supersizing even when they aren’t eating out.
Homemade hamburgers were just 5.7 ounces during the 1970s and swelled to 8.4 ounces in the 1990s, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which finds that people also are overdoing portion sizes at home.
“The things you keep in your pantry are oversized,” says Dr. David Katz, co-author of “The Way to Eat,” with the Yale School of Medicine Prevention Research Center.
Oversized portions can mean overeating. “We’re overshooting our meals by 50 percent,” Katz says.
Overshooting the number of calories we need in a day is dangerously easy to do. It only takes a couple hundred extra calories every day to add on 15 pounds in one year, according to dietitian Tammy Starks.
“As little as an extra slice of bread can add on that weight,” says Starks,dietician with Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn.
Once that weight is on, Katz says more of the body’s mass is converted into fat. “The fatter we get, the less efficiently we burn calories, the more uncomfortable it becomes to be physically inactive,” he says.
And as the body becomes more fatty, Katz says, the risk of cancer, diabetes, stroke and heart disease is significantly increased.
The health risks are increasing with the portion sizes. Starks says many meals are overdone by a few hundred calories. A 16-ounce steak grilled on the barbecue, for example, can have as many as 1,200 calories. Starks says a serving size of meat is actually only 3 ounces. Big potatoes also can mean big portions. Starks says massive spuds are often the size of three potatoes. And beloved breakfasts like four pancakes smothered in syrup and butter can total 1,000 calories, 500 more than necessary.
Extra portions also are easily devoured when snacking. Eating half of a full-size bag of chips is like consuming 12 servings.
Since it only takes 3,500 calories to gain a pound, a bad breakfast and a supersized night with the grill can lead to a larger pant size.
Knowing portion sizes and when to stop can help. Katz recommends sticking to healthy foods that won’t do serious damage if you have a second serving. “If you want an extra apple, go ahead and have one,” he says.
Eating off of a salad plate instead of a dinner plate will also help. “The average dinner plate has increased 40 percent since World War II,” Katz says. “And we had enough on our dinner plates back then.”
Size matters
Visual cues can help determine how many servings are really on your plate. Here’s what a serving size really looks like:
– Veggies: Your fist
– Rice: Tennis ball
– Pancake: Compact disc
– Cheese: Three dominoes
– Pretzels: Rounded handful
– Meat or poultry: Cassette tape
– Fish: Checkbook
– Butter: Dice
– Mayo: Thumb tip
SOURCES: MIDWEST DAIRY ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY, RUTGERS COOPERATIVE EXTENSION
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
