I sometimes wonder how much of US obesity could be reduced or eliminated simply by decreasing portion sizes. Disregarding hypercholesterolemia , hypertension, diabetes, and other diet-induced conditions, how much could our weight problems be reduced by eating the same types of foods, but just less of them?

You can examine many of the world’s populations that frequently eat high fat foods, and they’re not experiencing our same difficulties. Case in point: the French. Rich yogurts, cheeses, high-carb breads, and terribly sweet desserts are all common parts of the French meal, along with beer or wine–but their waistlines aren’t bulging as nearly as bad as ours. Sure, there are other factors–genetics, increased exercise due to fewer cars, etc.–but if you live in France for a couple months, you’ll start to know what I’m talking about. I distinctly remember my first dinner in Paris: some bread, French fries, and ham slices. I ate it, and was still starving . Had to order an extra dinner to fill myself up. But slowly, you adjust (being a student, you can’t really afford two dinners every evening), and when you come back to the US, portion sizes are daunting. Overwhelming.

It’s not easy at first. The first couple days you start decreasing your portion sizes aren’t the best: you’re constantly hungry, you probably feel a little weaker. But after your body has adjusted, it’s not bad at all. And when you start going back out to restaurants, you’ll be amazed at how much food they expect you to eat.

Eating at restaurants is always a struggle to get that last bolus of food from your plate to your mouth. It’s like the “ There’s children starving in China who would give anything to eat your food! ” maternal mantra gone terribly wrong. You hate to waste the food that’s right in front of your plate, and if it’s only a couple bites, or if you’re not heading back to a refrigerator, you don’t want to wrap it up–so you just eat it. Wouldn’t restaurants prefer to give you less entree, so that you might even consider a dessert menu?

If you want some examples of portion size changes over the years, check out Portion Distortion .

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