When it comes to portion control and weight gain, you would think that 85 food and nutritionist experts would know better than to serve themselves heaping bowls of ice cream. One of the common sense theories that links the continuing increase of weight gain in this country has been the tendency of Americans to super-size meals. Cornell University researchers held an ice cream social and invited 85 food and nutritionist experts to the serve yourself function. The guests were given a choice of bowl and spoon size. The ones that chose the bigger bowls and bigger spoons served themselves over 50 percent more ice cream than the guests who chose the smaller bowls and spoons.
Based on the experiment, the researchers recommend anyone interested in losing weight to downsize their plates, bowls, forks and spoons. It might be as simple as that -- smaller portions on smaller plates looks like more food. Smaller portions on larger plates looks like deprivation and not exactly a motivator to eating less. Perception is everything.
