At ease, fast food purveyors, junk food manufacturers, and point-of-sale lolly vendors of all stripes. The Public Health Industry has cracked the childhood obesity code, and the problem is … big plates:
DISHING up your child’s dinner on an adult-sized plate causes portion distortion and could prompt youngsters to over-eat.
Research found 80 per cent of children ate more when serving themselves on full-sized plates
“Portion distortion”. God, that has a ring to it, doesn’t it? It beats even “pester power” as a catchy call for the government to come and solve all our problems. And a problem it is, because heartless ceramics manufacturers keep pushing ever bigger plates on an unsuspecting populace:
Nutritionist Susie Burrell said plates had increased significantly in size over the last two decades, causing portion size confusion.
The Prick would love to see the evidence to back this assertion. Having grown up in the US and returned regularly over the past decade, I can’t recall ever thinking plates were somehow larger than when I was a child. But apparently there’s a Big Plate conspiracy to embiggen our children.
Nat Swan serves son Beau from a toddler-sized bowl. The 11-month-old, who eats healthily, lets his mum know when he has had enough.
Apart from toddler bowls, she has only seen child-sized plates with portion details online: “They are not readily available.”
Let’s see: Mum serves toddler. Toddler indicates fullness. And Ms Swan needs a plate with “portion details” to take the guesswork out of this?
Of course she does. And “nutritionists” like Burrell, and an army of academics, legislators, bureaucrats, and journalists are surely itching to make sure she gets them.
Prick With A Fork 
Maybe Mayor Bloomberg in NYC and Clover Moore here, could introduce a regulation that restaurants can only serve the main course on bread plates, instead of dinner plates. That would solve the obesity problem. It would also lead to more sustainable eating, lower carbon emissions through farting and pooing etc etc.
My favourite scene in the Alan Partridge show is when he sneaks his own 12 inch plate into the restaurant at the free breakfast in lieu of the 8 inch plate they supply.
Obviously a well-funded effort by Big Crockery …
If you point out the flaw in the argument (i.e. because kids stop eating when they are full irrespective of plate size) you are a Crockery Denier.
ANY DAY NOW THEY WILL BE SENDING OUT FELT TIP PENS AND CIRCLE STENCILS, SO WE CAN DRAW ON OUR PLATES TO KNOW HOW BIG A PORTION IS. tHE LAST OUTSIDE WILL BE NAMED THE oBESE RING. tHE TINY INSIDE ONE WILL BE NAMED THE SUNKEN CHESTED NO SHOULDERED MODEL. mORE FMENINE THAN A WOMAN, SO EASY TO BOISS AROUND.
I think we’ve all learned something today.
Well yes, I doubt plate size has actually been increasing. But research repeatedly shows people’s appetites are influenced by the size of the plate. The same quantity of food on a small plate will make you feel fuller than if it is on a large plate.
I just think of this as part of education, which is how informed, free adults make good choices…
No, large plates shoud be BANNED to prevent people making poor choices for themselves.
Eyeglasses that make food appear smaller should also be banned. For the good of the people.
The food police strike again. Too funny.
I suggest spoons with holes, exercise bikes instead of chairs, waiters that look you up and down and ask “do you REALLY need to order dessert?”. There is so much more the food police could be doing to save us from own ignorant selves.
I think this is odd. I eat from an adult sized bowl and it doesn’t seem to do me any harm.