From Shereen Jegtvig,
Your Guide to Nutrition.
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Our biggest downfall in nutrition right now is not a deficiency disease like scurvy or rickets, or other diseases we learned about in high school. Our biggest nutritional problem right now is one of excess. We are overweight and obese. We eat too much.

Why is Obesity a Problem?

Obesity leads to chronic diseases. Poor nutritional choices raise our risks for cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. It’s not just adults who are overweight; many of our kids are overweight too.

How Do We Stop Obesity?

This sounds easy in theory, but is very difficult in practice. The answer is to eat less bad food, eat fewer calories, eat more healthful food, and exercise more. We know this is the answer, but when we are given the choice of the big bag of chips or the apple, too many of us grab the chips. Why? We know they aren’t good for us, but the chips taste so good. In fact we are surrounded by such big portions of high calorie foods, that it takes a strong effort to eat less.

How Do We Stop Eating So Much?

Getting good at eating less takes practice. Here are some ideas that will help:

1. Choose smaller portions. This is especially important when you really want that treat. A one-ounce single serving of baked chips isn’t going to be nearly as fattening as wolfing down half of an 18-ounce bag of chips.
2. No more seconds. Dish up your meals on plates and serve them that way instead of family-style. It is too tempting to load up another pile of mashed potatoes when the bowl is sitting right next to you.
3. Avoid buffets, unless you have willpower like iron. Who doesn’t love a buffet? Lots of variety and the sheer mass of food translate into lots of calories. You can easily eat a whole day’s worth of calories in one meal.
4. Eat out a lot? Share your meals, or take half of the meals home with you. Order your favorite appetizer or an entrée, not both.
5. Become a Healthful Shopper. Buy fresh fruits, berries, nuts, and vegetables and stay out of the junk food aisles. If you are prone to get the munchies, these foods will keep your tummy happy. A slice of carrot can hold dip as well as a greasy chip…and has a lot more vitamins and phytochemicals that are good for you.

Why Do We Eat so Much?

We would like to believe that we eat exactly the amount of food our bodies need, that there is some type of internal mechanism that shouts, "I ate too much for lunch, now I am eating a smaller dinner," or "I ate too much yesterday so today I am eating less." Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that way, and in fact may be the exact opposite. According to researchers at Cornell University, the amount of food we eat is influenced by factors outside of our bodies.

When a group of twelve normal-weight men and women, average age 31, agreed to overeat by 35 percent for two weeks, they gained an average of five pounds, half of it body fat. When they were permitted to return to their normal eating behavior, they did not spontaneously cut back on their normal food intake, even after the two weeks of "feeling stuffed." Rather, they ate just as much as they did before the overeating period, as measured by the researchers during the two weeks before their binge began.

"The study suggests that eating behavior does not normally respond to internal cues, such as physiological mechanisms involved in the regulation of body weight, but to external cues," said David Levitsky, professor of nutritional sciences and of psychology at Cornell. "In other words, when the subjects returned to the same environment -- in this case our eating lab -- they returned to their same eating patterns, regardless of any biological signals."

Levitsky has been exploring predictors of food intake for several years. A number of his previous studies found that the amount animals and people eat is strongly determined by portion size, and that eating between meals, or eating a very large or very small (or no) previous meal does not influence how much is eaten at the next meal.

"Consistently, we find that how much people eat is in direct relation to how much they are served, the variety of foods offered and the number of people with whom they eat," Levitsky said.