Minimizing Food Portions

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Minimizing Food Portions With the increases in meal sizes, in the United States today, sixty-six percent of the country is obese. All of the different sizes offered by these fast food chains are two to five times larger than when they were first introduced. When McDonald’s first opened in 1955, its only hamburger weighed around 1.6 ounces; now, the largest hamburger patty weighs 8 ounces, this was an increase of 500 percent. (Schlosser) In your kitchen, it is a little bit different and you are able to have much more control over what sort of portions you want to be eating. This paper will show in depth examples of different ways to manage your own portions, like using smaller plates or if you do go to a restaurant, when they give you your food, ask them to put half of it in a to go box, along with many other ideas that will help the reader to have a better grasp on how to manage portions of food in their lives. The sizes of food portions in fast food restaurants have increased in correlation with the rising rates of obesity, health authorities have demanded that fast-food chains decrease the sizes of menu items. Through reading about the current state of fast-food companies and their efforts to reduce portion sizes, it seems evident that they are unlikely to be effective, and that serious measures must be taken to minimize the intake of fast food for Americans. (Young) This paper argues that there should at least be an option for smaller food portions at fast food restaurants and suggests ways that you personally can control your own portion sizes. In our country today there is clearly a problem with portion distortion. Everything is getting bigger; this leads to immense amounts of food that is thrown away constantly at these fast food restaurants. The Problem with Increased Portion Sizes Although the exact size of the increase in calories today is

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