Healthy Food Choices: Serving Sizes

Serving sizes are important to consider when eating and buying food, as some food products are packaged for families or individuals. Try these tips for buying food with serving sizes in mind in this healthy shopping video.

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Important for calorie control
Always read the food label
Visual aids can determine serving size
Stomachs are the size of two fists

About this Author

Michelle Cooper has been a registered dietician for more than 10 years. She currently works for the state of North Carolina for the New Hanover County School District in the Child Nutrition Department as the supervising registered dietician on staff. She specializes in child nutrition, child fitness and overall child health. She enjoys her job because it allows her to be a pivotal piece of child development.

MICHELLE COOPER: Next, we're going to talk about serving sizes. Serving sizes can be important for calorie control, and some servings have gotten way out of hand like the supersize servings that you may encounter at fast food restaurants. We talk about an 8-ounce glass of juice; we're not talking about the big jumbo size. So the most important thing that you can do to determine serving sizes, if you can, is to read the label such as this on the side of the box. The first thing that it's going to tell you is what a serving size is. So next time you start to eat a bag of potato chips, make sure that you read the serving size. You may find that only seven constitutes a serving. However, if there is no label and you're out and you're trying to determine what a serving size is, there are other easy methods to determine what they should be. For example, three ounces of meat is about the size of the palm of your hand or a deck of cards. An ounce of cheese is about the size of a golf ball. A bagel should be no bigger than a hockey puck. So remember to use these visual aids when visualizing your food. And also it's important to remember that your stomach is the size of about two of your fist. So you don't need quite as much serving sizes or portion sizes as you thought to fill it up. So number one, when you're out and if at all possible, read the serving size on the food label. Number two, if you don't have a food label and you're out, remember that about three ounces of meat is about the size of the palm of your hand or a deck of cards, an ounce of cheese is about the size of a golf ball, an average orange should be about the size of a tennis ball, and a bagel should be no bigger than a hockey puck. This will help you in controlling calories and making sure that your serving sizes are what they should be and not what you think they need to be.

Healthy Food Choices: Serving Sizes Video

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