Your Health by Dr. Rallie McAllister

If you're trying to shed a few extra pounds before bikini season, you may be choosing more foods that are low-fat and sugar-free. While most Americans could stand to eat a little less fat and sugar, many of us are still ignoring a basic fact: We consume too many calories.

Over the past 25 years, the typical American diet has expanded by more than 300 calories daily. In theory, it's enough to boost a person's weight by 30 pounds over the course of a year, since each extra 3,500 calories contributes to one pound of body weight.

Whether the calories come from a bag of low-fat pretzels or a bowl of sugar-free frozen yogurt doesn't make much difference. Consistently eating more calories than your body needs — regardless of the source of those calories — leads to weight gain.

One of the best ways to cut back on the number of calories you consume is to eat a little less of the foods you enjoy. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done, especially in the United States, where virtually every type of food is available in king-size portions.

The results of a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveal that since 1977 portion sizes have increased progressively among all classes of foods. Thanks to the popularity of super-sizing, the increases are most apparent at fast food restaurants.

When fast food first made its debut in the 1940s, a typical meal consisting of a burger, fries and a soft drink offered roughly 450 calories. The same meal today — in super-size proportions — weighs in at around 1,500 calories. For some folks, a single fast food meal provides enough calories to fulfill an entire day's requirement.

Burger joints may have introduced the super-sizing trend, but they were quickly joined by other eating establishments. If you've eaten at a chain restaurant lately, you may have noticed that it takes only one server to scribble down your menu choices and whisk them back to the kitchen, but it requires a small army of servers wearing back-support belts to haul the mountains of food back to your table.

Not to be outdone, food manufacturers have jumped on the super-sizing bandwagon. Research shows that the current size of practically every type of food available in supermarkets today, from bagels to sliced bologna, is substantially larger than the original size.

To accommodate the larger sizes, everything in our kitchens has gotten bigger.

Modern-day refrigerators, toasters, pots and pans, and breakfast tables are huge compared to the ones found in kitchens of yesteryear.

Our dinner plates are about a third larger than the ones most of our grandmothers used, and even our eating utensils are bigger. It's hard to take dainty bites when your dessert spoon is the size of a soup ladle and your salad fork resembles a small garden tool.

A number of studies have shown that when people use larger plates, they tend to pile more food on them. Although larger serving sizes lead to greater food intake, most people don't notice the difference.

To test the theory that larger portions lead to overeating, researchers at Pennsylvania State University served a group of volunteers different portions of macaroni and cheese on two different occasions. One consisted of two and a half cups of macaroni and cheese, while the other consisted of a whopping five cups.

When given the larger portion, the average volunteer ate roughly a third more macaroni and cheese without reporting that they feel any fuller. Scientists at Cornell University had similar results in a study using trick soup bowls.

When study participants unknowingly ate from soup bowls that slowly and imperceptibly refilled as their contents were consumed, they ate 73 percent more soup than the individuals who ate from normal soup bowls. Incredibly, the individuals eating from the rigged bowls were unaware that they had consumed more soup than the other study participants.

It would seem logical that eating too many calories at one meal would lead to eating fewer calories at the next one, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Studies show that most people don't compensate for the extra food they eat at meals and snacks. As the calories accumulate, the pounds pile up.

When you're trying to slim down, eating low-fat and sugar-free items can be helpful. If you aren't crazy about the taste of these foods, you can take a more straightforward approach: eat smaller portions, less food and fewer calories.

Rallie McAllister is a board-certified family physician, speaker and the author of several books, including "Healthy Lunchbox: The Working Mom's Guide to Keeping You and Your Kids Trim." Her Website is www.rallieonhealth.com. To find out more about Rallie McAllister, M.D., and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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