SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Consumers who want to fend off obesity don’t need to micromanage their proportion or type of carbohydrates, fats and protein, says eating behaviour expert Jim Painter.
They just need to control their calories, he told the Canola Council of Canada’s recent annual convention.
However, food companies have made that hard for most people.
“We get fooled by portion,” said Painter, an Eastern Illinois University researcher who made the Portion Size Me documentary, in which he demonstrated that people can lose weight even if they eat a lot of fast food, as long as they watch their calorie intake.
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“We lose track of the amount of food we’re eating.”
Painter said most consumers don’t realize that fast food companies have greatly increased the size of most of the meals they serve from a few decades ago.
A burger, fries and pop now contain hundreds more calories, but most people still feel compelled to finish what’s put in front of them, he said.
And remarkably, some people don’t actually feel fuller or unpleasantly full, even if they eat enormous amounts, because the psychological drive to finish a meal appears to create the feeling of fullness rather than the size of the food in the stomach.
Painter described various experiments he has conducted in which soup bowls are secretly refilled while test subjects are eating, or meals that are served on smaller or larger plates. He said the tests demonstrated how the impression created about the amount of food consumed is a key determinant to how full or satisfied a person becomes.
Unfortunately, the extra calories in most of today’s restaurant meals and food packages and the human propensity to eat a full meal mean most people are getting fat.
“We lose track of the amount of food we’re eating,” said Painter.
“Just say no to (the) combo.”
