Hungry?

When you started to discuss portion control of Americans I have a personal story that goes along with it. When I was home at Easter a week ago my mom had gotten back from my Grandma's house collecting anything for our big garage sale this summer. My mom took some plates and cups and a lot of other dishware. She brought it to my attantion that serving sizes sure have changed and she was right. We compared the regular dinner plate sizes of my Grandma's to our own and it was astonishing! The plates that my family uses is about an inch and a half bigger than the plates were a generation or so ago! What do you know. We could have been filling the plate up the same but the plate itself is getting bigger! This reminded me in the book when it talked about the fact that you will eat less ice cream, for example,if you prepare a portion and eat that instead of eating out of the whole carton. Chances are, you'll eat the whole carton. I think the main reason Americans eat so much is the portion sizes. Everybody whants more for their money, but in this case it should be the other way around.

I agree that Americans are gaining weight at astonishing rates. I think there is a couple main factors which lead to weight gain. I agree that not eating meals on a regular schedule leads to unhealthy snaking throughout the day. Also, I agree that portion sizes have increased as well as all-you-can-eat buffets. I think that people also do not have self-control of what they eat. I think that people are overweight because they eat too many calories that they do not need because those individuals are not exercising enough to burn them off.

One way to control or make good use of the hunger cravings is to eat healthy snacks like a fruit or some nuts. Of course, you should not go to Starbucks to buy a banana because chances are that you will end up buying a pastry! People should just take a little extra care about their health; do some exercises everyday and try to eat healthy. They should place a limit on the junk food they can eat during a week. Again it all comes down to the individuals choice. No one can force it!

I completely agree with "venka056" in regards to eating small portions throughout the day and not just large meals every so often. Eating small meals gives your body a constant source of energy and makes it less willing to store extra calories as fat. Everything is "BIG" in America, and I think that's a major part of the obesity problem. I think we need to regulate not only the amount of food we're eating, but the nutritional content as well, and a person's hydration level. We need to take control as a society and start educating our younger generation so that they don't have to battle with insulin resistance amongst other problems when they grow up.

I completely agree that portion distortion is our main issue. When I was younger, I went to Europe a few times and more recently I traveled to Colombia. While visiting other countries, even as a young child, the major portion difference between the US and other countries is very evident. In other countries, at restaurants you are served a portion about the size of your fist. In America, you are served a portion the size of your face. When a huge plate is served to you, you try to finish it, which causes you to intake much more calories than needed. Also, I feel another cause of the obesity in America is the fact that in many other countries, you walk everywhere or bike everywhere. In the US, we are quite lazy and would rather just drive places when they are within walking, biking, or roller blading distance.

This post is so true. Portion sizes have increased drastically over the last ten years. Just look at fast food restaurants, now there is the opportunity to King Size everything on the menu! It seems with food over the last decade more is better. I feel this is positively related with the increase in the average weight of an adult in the United States. People no longer know when enough is enough. People are eating more food each time they eat and more often than people did ten years ago.

I think portion is an interesting thing to look at from a college students perspective. With random class times, homework, and other obligations through out the day its hard to get on a concrete schedule of eating. I often will find myself snacking throughout the day instead of having a meal which leads to more hunger later on. Then when I do finally sit down I eat a large amount of food to the point where I am stuffed. I think it would be interesting to compare the demands of people in the past to those of people today to see if that has any effect on the increase in portion size and our country growing fatter daily.

I think you make a great point that the weight increase is due to lack of portion control and giving into cravings. That, and lack of exercise is key to weight gain I believe. Often times I feel that people attribute it to bad foods, however, from personal experience I find that you can eat what you want in good portion and not gain weight. This again comes from living a, not active, but lively lifestyle. This just means, taking the stairs instead of the elevator and walking to class instead of taking the bus. When I was working out 3-5 hours a day, my intake of food probably doubled, maybe even tripled. I actually lost weight in this time, so it is a combination of both I feel.

I would like to think that weight gain increase in the United States is due to portion size. As we grew up the portion sizes seemed to increase throughout McDonalds. Looking at the portion sizes now they seem to be trying to decrease as to say that they realized that the size was part of the problem. One thing that I would like to think is responsible is our means of transportation. It constantly is becoming easier to have convenient transportation allowing for less exercise through walking.

There are a few things that I have (tried) to implement into my daily routine in order to control hunger. Chewing gum or drinking water/low calorie juice (like Crystal Light) can help with hunger. Also, carrying around a small bag of almonds or some fruits/vegetables can help. But the most helpful, but potentially the most difficult way to control cravings is asking yourself, anytime you want to eat, do you really need it? Are you actually hungry, or does the food just look/smell good? Also, keeping a food journal can make you cognizant of how much and what you are eating. This may help limit someone's food intake. There are even apps for smartphones for this.