Dinner service - obesity

179 replies

sweeneytoddsrazor · 20/09/2026 21:49

DH has purchased a 1970s dinner service. We already have plenty of crockery but it's made up of the remnants of about 5 dinner sets. All of our dinner sets have larger plates than the 1970s one. This got me thinking is that why most recipes that say serve 4 often I only get 3 out of because the plate looks half empty. So I used the 1970s one and a 4 portion recipe did indeed fill 4 plates. So maybe a return to smaller dinner plates would help people reduce portion size and help the obesity problems
I will add that as a child we always had bread and butter on the table if we wanted it alongside our meal which doesn't seem to happen now unless it's garlic bread. Does our minds trick us into feeling full if we see a full plate and think we are still hungry if the plate isn't full?

OP posts:

FancyKitten · 22/09/2026 21:28

CopiedMyBlottingBook · 22/09/2026 18:43

I remember people going on 'the baby food diet'. One of the daftest fad diets in an era of fad diet after fad diet - the cabbage soup diet enjoyed a revival and in the late 1990s Atkins was all the rage, people eating nothing but bacon fried in cream or whatever. The '2, 4, 6, 8' diet - a four day rotational diet guaranteed to make you ill within a week (eat 200 calories Monday, 400 Tuesday etc.)So many downright dangerous diets in the 1990s.

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When I moved to London in the 90s I bought Rosemary Conley’s Hip & Thigh diet. I was a jeans size 8-10 (before elastane) what glorious hips, thighs (and bum!) I had… But did I know it? No, Siree!

I also remember doing Atkins & eating a whole bag of nuts at my desk. Looking at old episodes of Friends now, though… Rachel & Monica were sooo skinny! That was the look we were all aiming for.

HenriettaHippopotamus · 22/09/2026 21:36

I agree that plates might help. I notice all you can eat restaurants have smaller plates to stop you taking crazy portions. I think portion control is a big issue with overweight people.

I noticed portion size difference when I lived in Japan where obesity isn’t much of an issue. Portions were overall smaller. I’d get take away meals and not be completely stuffed like here.

AllHoityToity · 22/09/2026 21:39

I’ve got big white plates, they are 27cm and big white bowls for pasta because I got married in 2000 and they were fashionable then. Massive plates and a jus. Now we eat off the 23cm ‘side plates’ and have pasta in what are supposed to be cereal bowls.

My mum replaced her big pasta bowls with bowls she got at TKMaxx. When she got to the till she found out they were supposed to be sugar bowls.

ExpectMore · 22/09/2026 21:46

2manyEnergyDrinks · 20/09/2026 22:03

With all due respect, what a huge oversimplification.
I don’t think you’ve magically found the cure for obesity that you think you've stumbled upon.
Most people who have been obese for any length of time have tried every hack/diet that you can think of; smaller forks also come straight to my mind, chewing each mouthful 50 times, putting knife and fork down in between bites etc.
Trying a small plate or even a side plate is a well known trick most people give a try at some point, but for anyone with food noise/who struggles with their weight it’s not likely to be effective at all.
If it were, I don’t think there would be a booming GLP1 industry, everyone would just buy smaller plates…..

Edited

less in (calories), more out (activity)…. 99% of the battle.

other 1% comes to balancing what you eat and when.

others will pipe up with how it’s a lot more complicated however…

E = mc^2….. if there’s mass being created, it’s due to excess energy.

If not, we’ve broken the laws of physics….

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