The differences among food serving sizes, portions and recommendations for each are often confused. Although "super size" is considered a positive in many ways, there are many negative health outcomes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the numbers of children and adults who are obese continue to grow. Learn to scrutinize your serving sizes and portions to help yourself maintain a healthy weight and prevent illness related to obesity.
Serving Sizes
Serving sizes are listed on the nutritional label of packaged food. According to Nutrition Explorations, serving sizes are not a recommendation of how much you should eat. In fact, they may or may not match recommendations for serving sizes of different food groups by MyPyramid, which makes nutritional recommendations for number of servings from each food group a day. It is important to recognize that serving sizes on nutritional labels are an estimate of what you might eat, not necessarily how much you should be eating.
Portion Sizes
Portion sizes account for the amount of food that you get on your plate to eat. An example may be that you are at restaurant A and you order pasta with sauce. Restaurant A may normally provide 3 cups of pasta as the portion size for one order. Restaurant B, on the other hand, may only provide 3/4 cup.
Difficulty with Serving Sizes and Portion Sizes
Maintaining a healthy weight or losing weight can be difficult when portion sizes and serving sizes may not be in sync with what is recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans or the food pyramid. Many children are brought up with the habit of not leaving the table until they finish their plate. If portion sizes are distorted and there is no regard to recommended guidelines, it can lead to overeating.
Accuracy
It is important to have an idea of true portion sizes of different food types. To many, the true portion sizes may seem smaller than expected. According to Meals Matter, one serving of fruit is the size of a woman's fist, a serving of cheese is the size of six dice, and a serving of meat, fish or poultry is the size of a deck of cards. Knowing how to estimate true portion sizes is essential in tracking what you eat and how it relates to recommendations.
Where to Start
MyPyramid.gov offers dietary guidelines for Americans with regard to how many servings of each food group a person should have. Each person, depending on age, frame, gender and physical activity level, may have different recommendations. It is important that you talk to your doctor or a registered dietician about what diet is appropriate for you.
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