Are You Watching Serving Sizes?

With childhood obesity and health care reform hot topics for our government, we should expect to see new legislature aiming to help Americans better identify what's good for us, and what's not, so that we're better equipped to make smart decisions. One example is front-of-package nutrition labeling, where serving size and nutritional information will be more prominently labeled.

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is looking at the current information on those labels, like serving size, compared to how we really eat. Would you be surprised to hear that we're not following the serving size recommendation? And guess what that means?

We're taking in more calories, fat and sodium because we're eating larger portions. Now, if you sit down with your bag of chips and really think about this, it makes sense, right? But who does that? How many people are counting their number of chips at a friends' house? Do you know how to divide a big tub of ice cream into 16 equal servings? Does anyone have just one chocolate kiss?

That's not how we eat. We don't measure as often as we probably should if we're truly concerned about watching calories, fat and sodium. Not only will our pocket books feel this, our health is in jeopardy.

According to the NY Times, the serving size for most children’s breakfast cereals is three-quarters of a cup, yet most children are eating two to three cups per meal. The sugar, fat and calorie contents are typically high to begin with - should we be giving them even more? Is that how we want our children starting their day?

To be honest, more realistic serving sizes will be challenging at first. We will intuitively feel like we're getting less or consuming more calories with the old amount of food. Food manufacturers might see some backlash initially. The media will have fun with it.

But it's a good thing. We need a reality check on portion sizing and improving our nation's health. This is one of many steps to get there. Many.

Comments

[Michelle]

I am a visual learner - so having visual cues is helpful for me. For example, knowing that a suitable piece of fish or chicken is as big as a deck of cards puts things into perspective. It's amazing how often we are given pieces 2-4 times that size!