Dinner service - obesity

Obviously it’s not the entire explanation for obesity, but I definitely think there’s something in it.

Similarly, I got some beautiful, new very long stemmed wine glasses that look big but the bowl part is not… now DH and I never finish a bottle of wine because it feels like we’ve had enough after three small glasses!

We also switched to smaller plates after autistic DD insisted her dinner plate be entirely covered in food and no pattern showing.
Nobody noticed we were eating slightly less!

When I did Food and Nutrition O Level and Home Economics A Level in the late 60s/early 70s 2,000 calories a day for women was the recommended amount. Maybe people just used more energy. It's not a new figure though maybe it needs changing. I don't calorie count or eat ready-meals so it wouldn't make any difference to me.

Obesity was recognised as a chronic relapsing disease by the WHO in 1998. Obesity rates have been increasing since the 1970s into today epidemic levels.

It is only now with the availability and popularity of GLP1s as a treatment it is being discussed more widely and openly using the correct terms.

OP I agree with you. I think a lot of people don’t know what a normal portion is and just eat way too much. Smaller plates would help with that. If foods falling off the edge your portion is too big.

Wrong thread I think?

Also our seeming increasing dislike of any kind of avoidable discomfort. Nowadays it seems like even the slightest hunger pangs have to be dealt with. When I was young it was three meals a day, no snacks, you got a piece of fruit if you really moaned to Mum that you were starving, but were generally told to 'wait for dinner time'. Nowadays it's almost as though people are afraid of rumbling stomachs and a child being 'hungry' is seen as neglect. Going five hours or so between meals might cause vague feelings of discomfort but surely that's natural?

OP the problem is the change is style of plates without users changing their idea of how a plate should look. Larger plates as a trend came from the idea of food being spread out, so you could see all the elements of a meal, have spare space around the plate (makes food look prettier). But the mindset of fill the plate that comes from the old smaller sizes is still there for a lot of people, so they’d overeat.

It’s not that you need smaller plates, it’s that you need to expect a lot of the larger plates to be empty.

(larger plates with empty space are also better for eating food on your knee, not at a table, you’ve got space for food to move without spilling. But again, you need to not fill the plate for that to work.)

YANBU modern dining plates are massive. Ditto glasses. Our dinner plates only come out at christmas and big sunday roasts.

I am slim, and have cake virtually everyday. The cake I eat is homemade, just simple cake, like banana, or chocolate. I add peanut butter to the banana cake mix, and use less sugar, as I use very ripe bananas. I never buy packaged cakes in the shops, as they are full of ingredients, I have no desire to consume. UPF's are a huge problem in this Country, and are harming people.

I'd never heard of them and I just want to thank you for bringing them to my attention. Fabulous.

I've started doing school pickup this year and was shocked indeed!
They don't even have to wait a couple of hours, most of those kids have a bigger snack at home. We all live withing 15 minutes of the school, but apparently their kids are "starving" at 3pm and can't wait any longer (they already have a snack at school around 2pm!).

Ours used to finish school starving. When we got home they had a little platter: bit of cheese or wafer thin ham, piece of fruit, cherry toms, with something like mazo or hard bread. They had a home cooked dinner at 6pm.

What they never, ever were allowed to do was to eat in the street on the way home.

I often find that a recipe for 4 actually gives 6 of the size of portion we eat - so nothing to do with size of plate!

All our plates are vintage from the 50s-70s and it's definitely been an added benefit in our house to manage portion size.

Similarly, i strongly recommend using large dessert wine (such as port glasses), for wine at dinner. Ours are about 80cl, and we tend to drink a lot less yet still feel like we've had a full glass.

As a child I had the task of making Sunday supper. Remember we would have had a roast lunch (Somehow one chicken served 8 of us even when my step siblings were also home), and we always had tea, often with crumpets on a Sunday and cake and biscuits.
So the Sunday supper I regularly cooked would either be scrambled egg on toast or stuffed tomatoes on toast.

I wish I could persuade my DH to accept a light supper like that. It drives me nuts if we have a big lunch and he immediately starts talking about what to have for supper.

Also, wine glasses were smaller. My parents had a glass or two of wine with supper most nights. A bottle seemed to last forever. I think their glasses probably hold 100 ml max. and also wines back then tended to be lower alcohol content than nowadays.

I'm always shocked when parents take snacks (junk) for their kids to eat on the way back from school. God forbid they are hungry and have to wait a couple of hours until dinner time!

Slim people never have cake, like 'never'?

Well no it won’t help people who eat McDonalds or cake three times a day. But it might help a subset of people who can’t understand why they are overweight. For example I got into the habit of eating the same portions as my husband. I now cook for myself and don’t eat anything like as much. When I get ready made chips for instance I find the box lasts me three of four servings rather than the two the packet says.

I am never starving and still have snacks but have nevertheless lost weight. It is not the only part of it as I’m also eating more protein and exercise a bit more. None of what I’m doing is life shattering. It’s also all incremental things which on their own probably wouldn’t make much difference.

If you help 10-20% of people who are obese regain a healthy weight that’s got to be better than nothing. People who are dominated by extreme levels of food noise - for me I had moderate levels but mine were driven largely by habit and have reduced as I’ve eaten smaller portions- may need other methods of course such as weight loss drugs. I noticed when I went out with my friends recently how much less I ate now than I used to. For example I used to join them with a starter and then probably want a pudding as well whereas now a substantial main course and some appetisers and bread on the side was more than filling.

And, it's always the overweight people in coffee shops who are having coffee with a gallon of whipped cream on top and a large piece of cake.

The slim people have a coffee- no cream, no cake.

Funny that, eh?

I use my granny’s dinner plates ideal size bigger than a toast plate but about a third smaller than the vast “normal” dinner plates we all have now. I’m right at top of normal bmi so hardly sylph like but cannot gain without being overweight

It's not the plates per se but portion size, snacks and the availability of cheap ultra processed food.

There are many ready meals where, for me, a portion for one feeds two of us with lots of veg.

It's also the 'number of calories required in a day' on ready meals and menus.

There is no way I need the amount on those guides- I'd be huge if I ate 2K+ cals every day.

Add to this people not doing manual work, using cars more, etc etc.

@CaptainMyCaptain the Roly Polys!! Haven’t thought about them in years 😂 but you are right 😳

Not irrelevant at all 👍 and a good guideline for sure.

I guess what I mean is people who are obese are likely to be eating a load of other stuff, not just what they put on a plate? And also, with poor eating, people’s meals may not be coming on a plate at all - they are coming from fast food/junk food places - the rise in Drive thru availability in this country is staggering.

If someone manages to eat only their 3 home cooked meals a day - and is still obese - then yes, portion sizes are an issue, along with the food choices on the plate 👍

I had sinuitis once, put me on my back for 2 weeks.

You never know if its best to get kids and older people checked out during periods where acess to other services is not poss, but its def safest to do so - glad you took him in and he's got his meds -

I think it’s ridiculous the size of plates these days. I’m just about to set up home from scratch and am going to try and find smaller dinner plates.

Psychology does play a part in obesity. They’ve proven for instance thst if snacky food is out on the counter people will eat a lot more of it than if it’s in the cupboard. It’s an easy way of reducing how much you eat.