Does Portion Size or Amount of Food Affect Consumption?
(138-OR; 8:15 a.m. PT) Snacking on foods packaged as individual servings does not appear to lead people to eat less than eating the same food out of a large bag. This suggests that the total amount of food available, not the package or portion size, provides the cue for how much to eat. “Consumers might think they will eat less by purchasing pre-packaged quantities of individually sized snacks rather than one bigger bag or box. However, our study suggests this is not the case,” said Hollie Raynor, Ph.D., R.D., assistant professor of research at Brown Medical School and Miriam Hospital in Providence, RI. “Additionally, portion-controlled packages are often more expensive than large packages.” In the study, 28 healthy, college-aged, non-obese volunteers who were not dieting or trying to lose weight were randomly assigned one of four boxes of snack foods (potato chips,cookies, cheese crackers and candy) with either large or small portions and a large or small total amount of food. The fou
