www. Char l es tonPhys i c i ans . com | www.Hea l thL i nksChar l es ton . com | 69 Growing up in Thomasville, North Carolina, during the Great Depression, Lewis Clark Jr., recalled his first experience with food serving sizes. “There were six of us in the family, and at dinner we would pass a bowl of potatoes, a bowl of vegetables and a plate of meat, if we had meat – and everyone took one spoonful or one piece and passed the bowl or the plate to the next person,” said Clark, who was born in 1914. “And one of everything was all you got because there was hardly ever anything left for a second go-round.” While Clark added that his family “could have stood to eat more if we had had it during that time,” the opposite is now true for most Americans. Overweight, overeating and obesity are more common among Americans than at any other time in history. While many factors, such as physical inactivity, already-prepared food and the rise of fast food, in the past 60 years keep contributing to these health concerns, at their roots is a general disregard of serving sizes in almost every food category. “Most people pay sporadic attention to serving sizes,” said Dr. Cici Carter, owner of FreshMed, LLC, in Charleston. “We commonly sit down with a bag or box of food and eat until we’re content – which is likely beyond a true serving size.” She added that larger portion sizes have only enabled Americans to simply eat as much as they like. “That, coupled with a ‘clean your plate’ mentality of those living in previous generations when food was scarce, has certainly contributed to obesity,” Dr. Carter said. “Many of us have lost the ability to eat ‘intuitively’ and thus continue to overeat or drastically undereat for what our body may need.” But exactly what kinds of food does our body need? And, depending on our age, gender, size and activity level, how much should we have? The answers go back to 1943 during World War II, with the creation of the original seven food groups by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The food groups were intended to help Americans maintain nutritional standards under wartime food rationing. But, over the next 50 years, eating habits and portions kept changing and Americans began putting on weight. So in 1993, after re-creating the seven food groups into the food pyramid, the USDA introduced serving sizes to help Americans regain control of their weight. But in the last 30 years, serving sizes have proven to have had almost no value as to how Americans eat – let alone what they eat. WHEN YOUR EYES ARE BIGGER THAN YOUR STOMACH By L. C. Leach III
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