WWJD about Portion Control?

Portion sizes have grown dramatically in the U.S., but not just in the past few decades. According to a new study recently published in the International Journal of Obesity, meal sizes have increased by almost 70 percent in the past 1,000 years.

The clues were found in numerous renditions of the famous Last Supper paintings. Brothers Brian and Craig Wansink, a professor and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College, respectively, focused on the portion sizes represented by artists to find out when the trend towards larger portions began. They looked at 52 of the most well-known Last Supper paintings, which spanned more than 1,000 years, and indexed the size of the food portions by comparing them to the sizes of the average apostle’s head. They found a startling linear increase in the quantities of food shown: Main courses increased in size by 69 percent, plate size by 66 percent and bread size by 23 percent.—Denise Shoukas

Denise Shoukas is a regular foodspring.com contributor and is the author of foodspring’s food forager blog.

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