America is by no doubt the land of Super Size serving portions. From fast food restaurants to casual dining and even the prepared dinner entrees you find in grocery stores, the serving sizes have increased substantially over the years. What has also changed is our perception of what a serving size is – bowls and dinner plates have gotten larger to accommodate the larger portions of food we consume. Not surprisingly, the waistlines of Americans have also increased in addition the increased health risks as a result of obesity.

What has not changed is the calorie and nutritional content for ACTUAL serving sizes that we consume. Food manufacturers have not kept up with the increased serving size portions and why is that? I think a good portion of people in this country honestly try to keep their weight under control and in doing so, they read the nutritional content of the products that they buy. They pay pretty good attention to the calories, fat, sugar, etc listed in each of the serving sizes they consume. However, what is often overlooked is what the food manufacturer considers to be a serving size and/or the number of servings in the product you are purchasing. If the nutritional content were altered to match the serving sizes most people actually consume, you would probably not purchase the product due to its high calorie content or fat content or most likely both.

You may buy a prepackaged meal from your grocery store on the way home from a long day at the office. You check out the calorie and nutritional content on the back and figure that this is a pretty good dinner option. What you may not have noticed (and I have done this many times myself) is that the prepackaged meal your purchased actually consists of 3 serving sizes!! So the 400 calories you thought you were consuming is actually 1,200 and the 12 grams of fat is actually 36 grams! Those extra calories can add up to extra pounds and easily put right back on all of those calories you worked so hard to burn off during exercise.

What can you do to keep the extra pounds off? Besides paying extra attention to serving sizes, you can measure out your portion sizes with a digital kitchen scale or a measuring cup to ensure that you don’t exceed your daily calorie content. The general rule of thumb is that a serving size is equivalent to the size of your fist so keep that in mind when selecting fruits and vegetables such as potatoes. You might also considering eating from smaller sized plates and bowls as this can also help you stay on track with eating the proper serving sizes.

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