Bigger May Not Be Better

You go out for dinner and order spaghetti with your favourite sauce. The pasta is so plentiful that it’s falling off the plate. Yes, your meal is appetizing. But isn’t it more than you bargained for?

In an era when consumers look for great deals, it often seems as though the bigger things are, the better value for your money. “Supersize it,” the slogan from a fast-food restaurant chain, seems to sum it up. But more isn’t always better – particularly when it comes to weight loss. Sometimes leaving a little food on your plate is worth much more than the dollar it might cost. Watching your total food intake, not just limiting unhealthy foods, is the key to good health and permanent weight loss. Healthy foods are not without any restrictions. Excess calories from any food, not just fatty or fried ones, can cause weight gain.

In today’s “the-more-you-get-the-better” society, package sizes keep growing. Giant bottles of soda, extra large bags of chips, and king-size candy bars are all the rage. But as these foods get larger, so do our waistlines. Bigger packages and food items W apparently distort portion control. In fact, research from the University of Illinois shows that some people tend to eat more from larger food containers. When movie-goers were given popcorn containers of two different sizes, the people given the larger ones ate 44 percent more.