The United States of America currently has a high rate of obesity, be it in adults, teenagers or adolescents. A lot of people prefer to blame the quality of the food that is being served in restaurants. Many people think the oils that are used to cook food, or the meat itself is the sole contributor to the population of America being overweight. Many have even tried to protest against major food chains that are among the likes of McDonald’s, simply because they think the quality of the food is deteriorating.

However, the fact of the matter is plain and simple: it is the portion sizes that are to be blamed for the weight gain problem in America and in other parts of the world as well. A large chunk of people might not argue with the aforementioned statement, but there’s proof that this could quite possibly the only factor that has been contributing to the problem surrounding obesity. Here’s an analysis:

Comparing This Era to the 1970s

Researchers conducted many different studies and found that since the generation of the 70s or 80s, the portion sizes, along with the size of the plate and cups our food is served on, have certainly blown up in the past 30 years. This generation is growing up on fast food with portion sizes that are 138% more than that which was the norm for the people of the 70s. Thus, with the increase in the portion sizes, it makes a lot of sense that on average, people are overweight – not to mention, healthy food is more expensive. Here are some examples of the portion sizes in the 70s and how they are today:

• A slice of pizza which weighed about 3 oz, weighs 5 oz today;
• A regular bottle of soda weighed 10.9 oz, and today it weighs 17.7 oz;
• A normal serving of meatballs and spaghetti weighed 8 oz in the past, while it weighs 16 oz today;
• A standard bagel weighed 2 oz, while today it weighs 4 oz;
• An average cheese burger weighed 5.9 oz and today, it weighs 7.3 oz;
• A blueberry muffin that would weigh 1.5 oz in the 70s, weighs 5 oz today;
• French fries which were once weighed at 2.1 oz, now weigh 3.3 oz.

All of the abovementioned facts have some positive sides as well – now that the serving sizes have increased, you can expect to feel full in the average serving alone. However, when you grow up with those serving sizes being the norm, it’s difficult to feel full in just that and you might feel that you need more. Due to such sizes of the portions, the intake of fat and carbs is also increased.

This of course makes it normal for a person to eat more than they should be eating, and then consume more than they should be consuming. Hence, the problem concerning obesity in the United States of America has less to do with what is being eaten and more to do with the unnecessarily heavy size of the servings and high prices of food that is classified as ‘healthy’.