A new research study showed people do what their environment teaches them to do. As we all know the world is getting bigger, not taller, but heavier. The main reason, in my opinion, is the skewed sense of portion size. We follow what the marketers teach us when it comes to defining a portion. If larger portions are heavily marketed by restaurant groups, other will follow in competition; thus, the once smaller, recognized portion has now become larger. The sad thing is we don’t even realize it. Eaters tend to look at food at a unit.

In the study, researchers put a large bowl at M&M’s out for public consumption in a heavily traveled apartment building. One day they used a huge scoop, while alternating a small teaspoon scoop the following day. Guess what?  The people had eaten much more on the large scoop day. Thus, portion size is skewed.

Dieters need to get back to the basics and become famililar with what a reasonable portion used to be. Don’t fall into this supersize marketing trap. The scale will suffer.

Perhaps food companies, and restaurants should define how many portions are in its foods.  Another strategy is to ask for a doggy bag as your restaurant portion is delivered, and only eat half. 

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