Washington: A new study has found that taking bigger bites leads to eating less and not more.
In the study, Arul Mishra, Himanshu Mishra, and Tamara M. Masters (all University of Utah, Salt Lake City), examined the influence of small versus large bite-sizes on overall quantity of food consumed.
The authors conducted a field study in a popular Italian restaurant. They used two sizes of forks to manipulate bite sizes and found that diners who used large forks ate less than those with small forks.
The authors then began to investigate why this finding seems to contradict earlier research on portion sizes.
“We observe that diners visit the restaurant with a well-defined goal of satiating their hunger and because of this well-defined goal they are willing to invest effort and resources to satiate their hunger goal,” they wrote.
Diners can satisfy their hunger by choosing, eating, and paying for their food, all of which involve effort.
“The fork size provided the diners with a means to observe their goal progress,” the authors explained.
“The physiological feedback of feeling full or the satiation signal comes with a time lag.
“In its absence diners focus on the visual cue of whether they are making any dent on the food on their plate to assess goal progress,” they said.
The authors tested this conclusion by varying the quantities of food. They found that when the initial quantity of food was more (a well-loaded plate) diners with small forks ate significantly more than those with large forks.
When customers were served small servings, the fork size did not affect the amount of food.
To avoid overeating, the authors suggest consumers learn to better understand hunger cues.
“People do not have clear internal cues about the appropriate quantity to consume. They allow external cues, such as fork size, to determine the amount they should consume,” they added.
ANI
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