Newsgroup: it.salute.alimentazione
Titolo: Mangiare meno? Usa piatti piu' piccoli (ma non troppo)

Non serve una laurea in ingegneria aerospaziale per capirlo: usare un
piatto un po' più piccolo aiuta a mangiar meno (o una lattina, o un
vassoietto, o quel che sia il contenitore), perché psicologicamente è il
"piatto" che sazia!, mentre una porzione supersize fa ingrassare, perché si
tende a finirla tutta! ma un piatto troppo piccolo non aiuta perché allora
si tende a fare il bis!
Tutto ciò è abbastanza intuitivo, ma ora anche le ricerche lo confermano :)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14108243/
How many M&MS are enough? 
It depends on how big the candy scoop is. 
At least that's a key factor, says a study that offers new evidence that
people take cues from their surroundings in deciding how much to eat. 
It explains why, for example, people who used to be satisfied by a 12-ounce
can of soda may now feel that a 20-ounce bottle is just right. 
It's "unit bias," the tendency to think that a single unit of food - a
bottle, a can, a plateful, or some more subtle measure - is the right
amount to eat or drink, researchers propose. 
"Whatever size a banana is, that's what you eat, a small banana or a big
banana," says Andrew Geier of the University of Pennsylvania. And
"whatever's served on your plate, it just seems locked in our heads: that's
a meal." 
The overall idea is hardly new to diet experts. They point to the
supersizing of fast food and restaurant portions as one reason for the
surge of obesity in recent decades. They sometimes suggest that dieters use
smaller plates to reduce the amount of food that looks like a meal. 
But in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, Geier and
colleagues dig into why people are so swayed by this unit idea when they
decide how much to eat. 
Geier, a Ph.D. candidate who works with people who are overweight or who
have eating disorders, figures people learn how big an appropriate food
unit is from their cultures. For example, yogurt containers in French
supermarkets are a bit more than half the size of their American
counterparts. Yet French shoppers don't make up the difference by eating
more containers of the stuff, he noted. 
He and the other researchers tried a series of experiments using
environmental cues to manipulate people's ideas of how big a food unit is. 
In one, they put a large bowl with a pound of M&Ms in the lobby of an
upscale apartment building with a sign: "Eat Your Fill ... please use the
spoon to serve yourself." The candy was left out through the day for 10
days, sometimes with a spoon that held a quarter-cup, and other times with
a tablespoon. 
Sure enough, people consistently took more M&Ms on days when the bigger
scoop was provided, about two-thirds more on average than when the teaspoon
was present. 
In another experiment, a snacking area in an apartment building contained a
bowl with either 80 small Tootsie Rolls or 20 big ones, four times as
large. Over 10 working days, the bowl was filled with the same overall
weight of candy each day. But people consistently removed more, by weight,
when it was offered in the larger packages. 
In those experiments, as well as a similar one with pretzels, "unit bias"
wasn't the only thing that produced the differences in consumption levels,
but it had an influence, Geier and colleagues concluded. 
Brian Wansink, director of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab and
author of the forthcoming book "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We
Think," called the new paper an impressive demonstration of the effect in a
real-world setting. He has done similar work but didn't participate in
Geier's research. 
So can all this help dieters? 
Some food companies are introducing products in 100-calorie packages, and
Geier thinks that could help hold down a person's consumption. He also
suspects companies could help by displaying the number of servings per
container more prominently on their packaging. 
As for what dieters can do on their own, Geier said one of his overweight
patients offered a suggestion for restaurant visits: Request that the meal
be split in two in the kitchen, with half on the plate and the other half
packaged to take home. 
In any case, an earlier experiment of Geier's shows that the unit bias
effect has its limits. 
He had one dining hall at his university provide 10-ounce glasses for soda,
and a second provide 16-ounce glasses. He predicted that students at the
first hall would drink less soda. In fact, they drank more. 
Only later did he find out what went wrong. 
"They were taking two glasses at a time," he said. "I guess I went below
what is culturally construed as a unit of soda." 
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. 

 si tende a fare il bis!
Sarà pure vero, ma secondo me, la cosa più corretta è seguire una
dieta varia, nella quale si possono inserire tutti i gruppi alimentari
in quantità (grammature) stabilite.
Uno specialista in endocrinologia o nutrizione clinica (dietsta) può
fornire le info necessarie e le grammature.
Poi cbasta tenere traccia del peso corporeo (magari anche mediante
impedenziometria), e regolare la dieta di conseguenza.
Mi sembra più semplice che stare a lambiccarsi sulle misure dei
piatti!

On 31 Jul 2006 11:46:54 -0700, on ng it.salute.alimentazione, in
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Nel mondo reale, i cibi vengono venduti o somministrati in recipienti,
contenitori, dosi. 
Se vai in una pizzeria dove le pizze sono più grandi del 20 percento,
mangerai in ogni caso una pizza, e senza neanche accorgertene avrai
mangiato il 20 percento in più.
Se compri una lattina con 333 cl di birra, tenderai a finirla, non a berne
solo 200 cl e buttare via il resto. 
Se ti invitano a pranzo e a tavola servono un piatto abbondandte, su di te
ci sarà una forte pressione psicologica a finire il piatto, non a lasciare
avanzi.
Se a casa usi piatti molto grandi, nei momenti di appetito ti verrà
naturale riempirli e finirli.
Se invece usi piatti normali, per mangiare la stessa quantità dovresti fare
il bis, dunque rendere evidente a te stesso e agli altri che stai
esagerando.
Si chiama psicologia :)

 Si chiama psicologia :)
[...]
In altre  parole, una cosa è sapere in teoria quel che si dovrebbe mangiare
(per la quale è sacrosanto il consiglio di chiedere a esperti), un'altra
cosa è riuscire a farlo nella vita di tutti i giorni (e qui possono tornare
utili alcuni trucchetti).

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:13sd6g2q...@news.lillathedog.net...
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