The F.D.A Wants To Supersize Serving Sizes- Should We Care?
The FDA has recently announced that it plans to overhaul nutrition labeling on packaged food in two ways. The first is to bring key nutrition information, such as calorie content, to the front of the package. The second is to redefine serving sizes.
Many packaged foods obviously contain multiple servings, such as a bag of chips or a box of cereal. Most people intuitively know this, but may not know that a serving of chips may be only 15 chips, or that a bowl of cereal should only be 3/4 cup. Others are less obvious, such as a can of soup, which often contains two or more servings. Few of us look carefully at the recommended serving size (often given in portions of cups or ounces) before digging in. This is crucial, though, because the nutrition information some people may look at, such as calories, fat content, and possibly sodium content, is all listed per the recommended serving size. To make matters worse, serving sizes are not even standardized by different governmental bodies, according to Mark Andon, VP of nutrition at ConAgra foods, in a New York Times blog:
"there are different types of servings. The F.D.A. serving amounts differ from the U.S.D.A.’s My Pyramid food guideline, and both of those can differ substantially from the portion consumers serve themselves. And serving size confusion goes beyond packaged food. For example, the F.D.A. considers a serving of a raw apple to be 140 grams. However, the U.S.D.A. says we should eat 2 cups of fruit a day and a “small” apple (2.5 inch diameter) equals 1 cup. But consumers are unlikely to find such small apples at the grocery store; they will see big, beautiful shiny apples that are easily 3 inches or more in diameter and weigh closer to ½ pound each."
The problem is that in this country, our serving sizes have increased dramatically over the past few decades. This is known as "portion distortion" and has been linked, somewhat obviously, to the growing obesity epidemic. (Remember Supersize Me? Documentarian Morgan Spurlock famously conducted an experiment on himself in this 2003 film. In the documentary, he ate three times a day at McDonald's, gained almost 25 pounds, and as a consequence developed medical complications including liver abnormalities, heart palpitations, headaches and depression.) While most of us have not increased our portion sizes nearly as dramatically or as quickly, few people can recognize a serving size when asked. Restaurant portions are often double the recommended serving size. A study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in 2003 showed that commercially available foods commonly had portions which were two to eight times the standard servings. An easy way to approximate a balanced meal of appropriate portions is to look at a Healthy Choice frozen meal. To many, that would not be enough for dinner, but that is what is currently considered the appropriate amount for the average adult. If you visit other countries, you'll notice that even commonplace items like cans of soda are much smaller than what are routinely sold here.
The FDA's goal in updating serving sizes is to bring them in line with how Americans actually eat. By being more realistic, the hope is that knowing how many calories you'd consume when you buy a packaged food product would stop you from doing so.
Does this make sense? It sounds like Supersizing. Educating people, perhaps with graphics, about what the intended serving size is on the front of a package might be helpful in combating obesity, which is what this initiative is all about. But adjusting portion sizes to match the American reality seems self-defeating. It's analogous to the inflation of clothing sizes, which is at the point that you can be a size 0 and actually exist. If we keep eating more, will the FDA need to continually readjust serving sizes?
___________________________________________________
Schwartz J, Byrd-Bredbenner C.J. Portion distortion: typical portion sizes selected by young adults. Am Diet Assoc. 2006 Sep;106(9):1412-8.
Young LR, Nestle M. Expanding portion sizes in the US marketplace: implications for nutrition counseling. J Am Diet Assoc. 2003 Feb;103(2):231-4.
© Linda Shiue, 2010
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Pranay Sinha
Colony of Losers
Mia Nakaji Monnier
Barbara Becker
Duane Gundrum
Christine Geery
Salon.com
Comments
R
How many people actually consume only half a candy bar, 40 percent of a single-serve bottle or a quarter of an individual pack of chips?
How many people--or kids--eat only 3/4 cup of cereal?
Therefore, I agree with the FDA on this one. Knowing what a typical serving contains could help move us from these calorically dense processed foods to real food, and hopefully also to reasonable portions.
Let’s also make it simple: A small package is one serving. Let's not kid ourselves.
It seems reasonable to expect that once the FDA adjusts the serving sizes to be more realistic with how people actually eat, consumers will be less likely to put certain items in their cart. The huge number of grams of sodium, fat, etc. will scare them away.
One interesting note. When we living in France a couple of years back, we noticed that they were Americanizing their serving sizes in restaurants. I had mentally prepared for eating like a bird, but the plates were surprisingly large enough for a two people much of the time, and in places where you expect otherwise.
Sadly, we also noticed the flocking of Parisians to KFC and McDoo's for lunch and dinner. That was disappointing.
Now, if they'd only get cracking on the gluten free labeling!
Stop touching, reading or even considering buying anything that you feel like you ought to read the label on. I feel semi-safe buying lettuce at the local health food store. Sometimes I'll look at the nutritional information on the side of a carton of cream as I make coffee and rationalize that a tablespoon of cream in my single cup of coffee isn't going to kill me too quickly.
What I find crazy about US serving sizes is the small bags of potato chips with 1+1/8 serving. I mean, come on, I am very good at mental math and I've never once bothered with either figuring out the calories or leaving an 1/8 of a bag of chips.
I find the food pyramid difficult because its idea of a serving is WAY off of mine. 8 servings of grain? I can't even slice my homemade bread thin enough for one slice to not be over a "serving".
You can put labels on the food. You can change agricultural subsidies. You can't make people take care of themselves.
Rated!!
For cold cereal I have a bowl that I use that is just right for about 1 1/4 cups of my favorite cereal, skim milk and a banana. If I eat that much of a high fiber cereal and some fruit I am not hungry during the morning at all. If I eat 3/4 cup of cereal I am hungry and end up eating something that has more calories, and probably more fat, than if I had gone ahead and eaten what I consider to be a full portion.
I also think that these falsely labeled servings work against us psychologically because they don't allow us to naturally develop a sense of what 'enough' actually is.
So I am thinking that the FDA has got this right.