Essay On Portion Size

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Portion size is increasing throughout most high-income countries. Many studies look at how when increasing portion size the overall energy intake for a person increases. Energy density has a part to play with portion size as usually if a portion size in increased so will the energy density, therefore higher energy intake. But some studies have shown that the energy intake could me more down to the energy density of the food and not the size of the portion. Energy density is the amount of calories or energy that is in a weight of food. This is usually expressed in number of calories in a gram of food (kcal/g). Foods that have are very high energy dense will provide a lot more calories per gram of food than the lower density foods will. This means that a person for the same amount of calories can consume much larger portion sizes of lower energy dense foods than they can of higher energy dense foods.
The energy density of a food is determined by its composition. In lower density foods there is a lot of water. Water lowers the density of a food because the energy density of water is 0kcal/g. This means that the water will contribute towards the weight, but it will not alter the food. Another nutrient that has low energy density is fibre. This has a energy density of around 1.5-2.5 kcal/g so this means that fibre will help to lower the energy density. Carbohydrates and proteins are around 4kcal/g meaning that they are quite dense. Providing more than double of carbohydrates and proteins is fat. Fat is around 9kcal/g and it is the most dense nutrient in food increasing energy density of foods greatly.
Some examples of low energy density foods are vegetables, fruits and soups. These foods have a very high water content as well as usuall...

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...in this kind of cross sectional data there is no way to determine causality.
A study done by (Fitzwater SL et al, 1991) consisted of 18 individual and group counseling meetings over 7 months. They tried to get overweight individuals to eat a low energy dense diet consisting of high amounts of fruit and vegetables. The results shown that the subjects had lost an average of 7.3kg 53% of the participants continued to maintain this and continue to lose weight over 2 years. However this study didn’t include a comparison or control group or detailed food intake information, it does state that consuming a diet which is rich in low energy dense foods is an effective strategy for weight loss and maintenance. Also additional evidence supports the diets rich in low energy dense foods. A study done by (Epstein LH et al, 2001) shows how low energy diets can lead to weight loss.

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