People eat until full regardless of the
dinnerware, researcher says.
A smaller plate won't help you eat less, says a new study
that challenges a widely held belief.
"Smaller plates
are often recommended as a way of controlling intake, but that simply isn't an
effective strategy," senior researcher Meena Shah, a professor of
kinesiology at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, said in a news
release. "There was no plate size, weight status, or plate size by weight
status effect on meal energy intake."
The study included 10
overweight or obese women and 10 normal weight women who were randomly assigned
to have lunch using either a small (8.5-inch) or large (10.8-inch) plate. The
women were told to serve themselves and eat until they were satisfied.
The women did this on
two different days, using a different-size plate each time.
"It is possible
that plate size does not have an impact on energy intake because people eat
until they are full regardless of what utensils they are using," Shah
said.
She noted that overweight and obese women "reported lower levels of hunger and prospective consumptions before the meals and
felt less full after the meals compared to normal weight subjects despite no
difference in energy consumption between two groups. This suggests that
overweight/obese individuals may have a lower ability to sense hunger and
fullness than normal weight adults."