You are What you eat

As the average American’s health gets increasingly worse, meals served at restaurants are getting increasingly bigger.
“(Restaurant meals) are huge,” said New Boston freshman Maria Leone. “They’re like twice the amount you’re supposed to eat.”
A 12-ounce steak dinner with a baked potato with butter and sour cream, broccoli and toast is more than 1,800 calories. The USDA recommends an average of 1,600 calories a day for females, and 2,400 for males.
Though not a cause of unhealthy eating habits, large portions at restaurants can be a serious problem, said dietitian and temporary faculty member Elizabeth Jackson.
“I think that, in general, restaurant portions are huge,” said Jackson, who teaches HEV 557: Advanced Topics in Nutrition, Eating Disorders. “The size of the portions do not cause eating problems. For people with eating problems, large portions can be a path to overeating.”
Jackson said skipping meals and sporadic dieting also can cause overeating.

“Through a process of either going off and on diets or thinking they shouldn’t be eating their favorite foods, (people) get into the habit of dieting then overeating,” she said. “Sometimes, the chronic overeaters are the ones who also are chronic dieters. People who are dieters end up eating more when they’re presented with a lot of food than people who aren’t.
“Some people end up overeating because they don’t want to leave anything on their plate.”
Jackson suggests rather than eating the entire meal, take the remainder home and eat it later.
Livonia sophomore Rebecca Ramm said she’ll usually get a large snack or an entire extra meal out of her leftovers.
But Highland freshman Jason Woodcox said although serving sizes usually are excessive in restaurants, they may still be acceptable on occasion.
“I don’t think people go out and have a steak dinner every night,” he said, “I think it’s OK once in a while.”
Overall, Jackson recommends moderation and consistency in a diet, but not to restrict the diet entirely.
“Anytime you have restriction, humans tend to bounce the other way and overeat,” she said.

lifeline@cm-life.com