What do you serve for those business breakouts and how are portions measured? Have you considered how smaller sizes and brain booster snacks could benefit your business?
Belief that bigger is better brings big business woes and workers are falling victim too. Sciecedaily today posted an article… “'Portion Distortion' May Contribute To Expanding Waistlines, Study Reports” In research reported by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey we are told that “people's perceptions of normal portion sizes have changed in the past 20 years. This phenomenon occurs when consumers perceive large portion sizes as appropriate amounts to eat at a single eating occasion.”
Has your sense of normal changed? This study “compared what people perceive to be a typical portion size now to what was perceived as typical two decades ago, before portions began to grow. We also compared current perceptions of typical portions to reference portion sizes, defined in this study as the serving size on the Nutrition Facts panel."
177 young adults selected one meal, choosing “normal” portions of a total of eight meal items at breakfast or six for lunch and dinner. They selected orange juice in 40 percent larger portions than 20 years ago. In nutritional terms, this larger amount of orange juice provides 50 additional calories and could equal a five pound weight gain over the course of one year if consumed daily.
Other increases included … 20 percent more cornflakes … almost 30 percent more milk on cereal … and similar increases at lunch and dinner. This study makes it no surprise that people's waistlines are expanding."
My solutions? I like what Dr. Robyn McMaster posted in Nutrients to Turbo-Charge Your Brain … over at Brain Based Biz. Did you know there are brain booster vitamins in green vegetables… brown rice … tofu … nuts … sunflower seeds … and eggs? Anything there you could add to the next office snacks – as a way to ratchet up the collective IQ where you work?
Quite an interesting post Ellen - as someone who "converted" years ago to the "better diet equals better thinking" theory, I wish there would be better foods on business conference tables. I see too much processed sugar (bad!) and carbs (bad too). I'd love to convince some office managers that Robyn's list is the way to go. I'll keep trying! All the best.
Posted by: Starbucker | September 5, 2006 4:37 PM | Permalink to Comment