How much does the plate size have to do with obesity? If you live in America most plates are piled high with food, and if you were brought up like me, then you were taught to clean the plate.
This leads to the following formula, More Food Than Necessary + Eating Plate Clean = Eating More Calories Than Needed. Eating more calories than necessary leads to gaining weight, which can lead to obesity.
So I ask is the key in just less food on the plate?
Compare food quantity below:
Japanese Bento Box
Plate of Chinese Food
WOW!! An American Hamburger.
Smaller plates, less food, is it that simple?
Technorati Tags: obesity
Entries (RSS)
I believe that this issue shouldn’t be centered on the quantity of food people ingest but on the quality and, equally important, their life-routine and age-related metabolism changes.
For instance, it is absolutely normal in other cultures to eat until the plate is “clean” (and even have a second plate) but, the kind of food, the size of the portion and what that person would do the rest of the day (assuming this was lunch) it is likely to be different from what would be here in US.
So, from my personal perspective, the plate size along is not the cause of obesity.
Further, if we considerer that eating “More Food Than Necessary + Eating Plate Clean = Eating More Calories Than Needed”, it can be inferred, then, that knowing your daily calorie consumption would significantly help you to decide which foods you should be eating and/or how much calories you need to burn in order to maintain certain eating habits.
As you’ve rightly pointed out (and leaving genetic and medical problems aside), if is not burned it will be accumulated!!!