Portion Distortion

Recently, there was a whole lot of fuss when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a ban that would eliminate the sale of sugar sweetened beverages over 16 ounces in stores, movie theatres, restaurants, sports venues, etc. I have been following this issue for a while, and actually wrote a paper on it for an English class this summer. My mom mentioned they were talking about it on the Today show this morning, and I thought I'd share my feelings on the ban.

During his time as Mayor, Bloomberg has championed several health initiatives that were unpopular at first, but have since had a ripple effect and been accepted all over the country. For instance, New York City was the first to ban trans fat and to force fast food restaurants to put calorie counts on their menu boards. 

Bloomberg has always had critics who think he is attempting to create a Nanny State. In fact, he was given the unfortunate nickname "Nanny Bloomberg" after proposing the soda ban. Instead of looking at this as an issue of government control, I think it is important to look at Bloomberg's intentions. Even though soda is the largest source of calories in the US diet, for me...this ban isn't about soda. It is about portion size. Soda is just an easy place to start. I promise I will talk about my issues with soda on here at some point... but it seemed a little soapbox-ish for my first real entry :-) 

According to the CDC, the number of obese Americans has increased by a staggering 214% between 1950 and 2000. You know what else has increased since 1950? Portion size. A report in the Journal of Public Health Policy found that portion sizes offered by fast food chains are two to five times bigger; soft drinks have expanded in size by 52%, and snacks, whether they be potato chips, pretzels, or crackers, are 60% larger!

The Difference Between 1950 and 2000

You may be asking what the big deal is, or thinking, "just don't eat the whole thing!" Studies have shown that the more food is put in front of us, the more we will eat, regardless of how hungry we actually are. If you are given a 6.9 ounce order of fries, you're probably not going to stop after consuming 2.4 ounces of them.

So, how do we combat this? The profit for large food corporations have never been better, so I don't think we can expect to see shrinking portion sizes any time soon. Therefore, it is up to us to educate ourselves on portion sizes and take control of what we are putting in our mouths. 

In my next blog, I will talk about what a typical portion size of a variety of foods should be, and teach you a few easy ways to police your portion sizes without doing any measuring or calorie counting.