User Post: Portion explosion!

Great information.

Great post. I just came back from Maine where my friend bought an old farmhouse built in the early 1900's. Her set of dishes won't fit in the cabinets because they are so much larger than dishes people used back then.

This article is stupid. Portions have certainly gotten larger in general but these are exaggerated. I have never seen a burger that big that wasn't advertised as being larger than normal. Rally Yahoo...this is news worthy?

The problem is perception. I have taken friends to restaurants that serve what I would term "normal" size portions and people will say.."The food was good but the portions were too small for the price". I will ask if they got full and the answer yes. So then I ask, why do you think you need more. I think people come to believe they need this much food. My husband and I usually split our meals (some people indicated we are cheap), because that is all we need and want.

Sorry, but this is a silly article.
Comparing "a burger" then to "a burger" now? That depends where you get it! For example, a Big Mac is far smaller today than it was 20 years ago.

And this is why America is fat! They should go back down in portion size and price! We need to eat to live not live to eat!

Portion size is probably the biggest factor in why people are so overweight now a days. Fast food and even regular resturants are making their portions way to big and people think "ok.. This is how much I'm supposed to eat in a meal." Truth is most people don't know what their portions should really be. I really wish that they would focus more on this in health class when I was in school because no one ever taught me about portions. I think portion control would really help the new generations learn how to eat.

Bigger, better, faster, more. That's the American way. :)

I knew I'd seen this before. Way to copy FatFighterTV. http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/food-portions-then-and-now-362672/
They even stole the images of the second page of the original article.
http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22178/49492-portion-size--now/2

I won't argue that people today are fatter, and portions are bigger. However, one difference between now & 20 years ago is the amount of exercise people participate in. My parents (in their 70s) never exercised a day when they were in their 30s through 60s. Never jogged, never biked, never walked, etc. No one their age did....we (the baby boomers) are the ones who started exercising. Maybe we exercise because we know it is the healthy thing to do? Maybe we exercise because we have to burn off the weight we gain from the larger portions?!? Integrate the portion sizes of yesteryear with today's better exercise habits....

All they did was show a small portion of something and then a larger portion. My turkey sandwich that I just ate looks like that small one from 20 years ago, but wow it is in the present! Yes restaurants do have larger portion sizes these days but this is a very pathetic attempt to demonstrate that fact.

I only get small soft drinks. I can still remember getting a large sized drink after I had been away from fast food for awhile. When I got the drink I was floored. I'm pretty sure I could've put a cat inside that thing, it couldn't even fit into the cupholder. Portions in this country are out of control.

Back then some people were dying of hunger and many were suffering from nutritional diseases...

The pictures of food are only for size comparison -- visual aids. You don't really think they were supposed to snap pix of a twenty-year-old plate of spaghetti?

The price of food keeps going up and the portion size keeps getting bigger except for a few places out there. I know it is not the best case senario but it makes sense. The more you pay, the more you want to get for your dollar, whether you eat it or not or take it home. I know I have gotten portions that do not fill me up and needless to say I do no go back.

If restaurants would reduce the size and then reduce the prices to go with the smaller sizes, maybe more people would be able to afford to take their family out. My husband and I will often share an entree. It's cheaper and we satisfy our appetites without having to take home leftovers.

Looking at all this food is making me hungry!

that made me hungry

That's hard to argue. After all, look at the size of the photo of the plate of spaghetti then versus now. It's so much bigger! Even though it appears to be the same plate, it's a much larger photo, so it must be higher in calories.

Give me a break.

I not an American but last month I visited the States and I was just shock at how big the servings in the restaurants are. I'm a small person and am used to the small servings I get back here in my country which is enough for me. I feel bad about all the food I wasn't able to eat and just left at the restaurant. There are many people in the world who couldn't have access to decent food and there in America, a lot of good food goes wasted. Doggie bags weren't an option for me in a trip following a certain itinerary. Food items are some things I'm not allowed to bring into certain places I went to, like in a ship. It was just crazy.