Why are Americans becoming increasingly fat? Portion distortion is partly to blame.
Are we too fat and too unhealthy? Like a lot of Americans, I struggle with my weight.
I have a doctor friend who works in emergency medicine who’s been thinking about writing a book called “Eat Less or Die.” She’s worried about the life and death health consequences she sees daily from obesity.
Portion Distortion has a lot to do with it.
Portion Distortion: Obesity in America
Walk down the street in any European city and pay attention to the waistlines of the people you pass. The largest belt sizes belong to the American tourists.
Americans lead the world in excess fat: 63.1 percent of American people were considered overweight or obese in 2009.
Adult obesity rates are on the rise. Over 27 percent of adults were considered obese in 2013.
Today, in 2020, nearly 40 percent of American adults are obese. That’s over 90 million people.
Obesity is “common, serious, and costly,” according to the CDC.
Why so much blubber?
Some blame American largeness on “portion distortion.” Distorted portions: the incredible increase in the size of restaurant meals in the past 20 years.
But it’s not just the fast food chains that have been increasing their portions.
According to the latest research, restaurants from McDonald’s to the gourmet French bistro in small town New England are dishing up ridiculously large amounts of food.
“It’s obscene, I could not eat half of the meals I am served,” says Martin O’Brien who lives in Belfast, Ireland. O’Brien visits the United States frequently for his work. “I can’t bear to think of the waste.”
O’Brien, five feet ten inches tall, weighs in at a slight 140 pounds.
Unlike him, most American consumers pace their eating to keep up with the food being offered.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a bagel 20 years ago was three inches in diameter and contained 140 calories.
Today’s bagel?
A caloric treat of more than twice what it used to be: 350 calories strong.
A cheeseburger 20 years ago had roughly 333 calories in it while today’s megaburger has 590.
And today’s portion of spaghetti and meatballs has 1,025 calories, which includes two cups of pasta with sauce and three meatballs.
The NIH specifies that this carbohydrate saturation is 525 more calories than a portion of pasta 20 years ago.
Even drinks have followed suit.
A 6.5 ounce portion of soda, the cheapest drink on the market, had 85 calories 20 years ago.
Today?
The same amount of soda has 250 calories in it.
Why have portions in restaurants become so absurdly large?
Aggressive marketing by America’s fast food industry is part of the reason.
In 1983 when John Martin became CEO of Taco Bell he knew he had to do some quick thinking to keep the franchise from going under.
He met just the man to do it: Elliot Bloom.
A market researcher, Bloom helped Martin figure out that they could cater to more American consumers by pricing food so low that anyone would be wooed by the cheap cost of a meal.
It worked so well that the other fast food joints followed suit.
That’s where portion distortion comes in.
In order to satisfy investors and increase profits even more, fast food venues kept prices low and introduced “super sizing,” offering enormous portions at very low prices.
Since the food itself is so cheap for the chains to produce, they don’t lose money by keeping prices low and serving more of it.
In fact, most of the money does not go to make the food, it goes to pay the overhead costs of running a business (electricity, insurance, advertising, etc.).
If you don’t normally gravitate towards the jumbo burger or super burrito, the chain stores have added some incentive: Buy the next largest size and get a bigger drink at the same cost!
Upgrade your meal for just one extra dollar!
What gets lost in this equation, though, is the fact that none of us needs to be eating so much food.
The danger of being too fat
Excess weight, which we already knew was associated with high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease, has also been linked to higher incidents of breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer.
The moral of this story?
Next time you grab a Happy Meal or enjoy a French steak au poivre, think twice before you stuff every last bit of your meal into your mouth.
Ask for a doggy bag and eat the leftovers another time.
That’s “Un p’tit sac pour le chien.”
Read more about obesity trends in America from the CDC.
A version of this post about portion distortion was first published as an article in Healthy Life magazine.
Published: December 9, 2013
Last update: January 30, 2020
We had B&B guests today who were commenting on how even adolescents in low-slung jeans are showing fat around the belly. How have we allowed this to happen? Everything has sugar or high fructose corn syrup in it. I believe the obesity epidemic has to do with the quality of American food. Yes, portions are too big. But GMOs, and 75% of American food is genetically engineered now. It does not provide nourishment, so we eat more to feel full. Also, since “MacDo” and fast food came to France, French adolescents are gaining weight …
i’m also guilty of eating too much in one sitting. unless in a *real* pinch, i don’t go for fast food. I cook healthy meals for myself and my family. however, i notice that i’m just consuming a lot more (quantity-wise) compared to even 5 years ago. I don’t understand it. what’s going on?
Alexandra–that’s a really good point. The quality of the food makes a huge difference. If we eat empty calories, we eat more of them because we are not nourishing our bodies. I remember when a book called something like Why French Women Don’t Get Fat came out and it talked about how eating small quantities of high quality fat (like organic whole milk yogurt or fat from meat) is not a problem. It’s overeating or eating the stuff that humans have no business consuming (like corn-derived over-processed products) that are hurting us the most…
Thanks for this. I cook from scratch 99% of the time with wholesome foods, but still struggle with weight myself. As I launch myself into a healthier eating plan tomorrow, I’ll keep portion distortion in mind. Then maybe I’ll be a more reasonable size myself!
Michael Pollan’s adage “not too much” in his three-part mantra: Eat Food. Mostly Plants, is what immediately comes to mind after reading your post, food for thought for many of us, no doubt.
I live abroad and every time I come back to the USA I am shocked by how heavy everyone around me suddenly seems (and I’m no skinny mini, but I suddenly look very slim comparatively). But I disagree about your assessment of how you looked on French TV. I think you look beautiful!