Restaurants Contribute To America's Fattening

April 16, 1998|By KRISTIN EDDY Chicago Tribune

Because Americans have been eating out in record numbers _ and have been dazzled by ever-growing portions _ it's becoming easier to lose track of what constitutes a reasonable meal.

``Really, any plate of food in a restaurant is twice the size of what you need to feel satisfied or what you would cook at home,'' says Barbara Gollman, a Dallas spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association who consults with restaurants on healthful menu planning. ``Most meat and fish entrees are going to be 6 to 8 ounces and up, when we should be eating less than half that amount in one meal. I think it does add to the growing size of our consumers.''

For restaurateurs, the theory behind an eye-popping display of food on one plate is that customers believe they are getting a good value.

For restaurants, it's relatively cheap to increase the quantity of an entree, thus giving the customer plenty to eat and the feeling of being generously served. The California Pizza Kitchen chain recently announced it was increasing the sizes of its pizzas and pasta entrees. A few years ago, the trade magazine Restaurants USA reported that standard dinner plates had increased to 121/2 inches from 101/2 inches.

Although no one would argue against value for your money, the concern of nutrition professionals is how frequently Americans are getting too much of a good thing.

The most recent food consumption survey by the United States Department of Agriculture found that up to 10 percent of Americans are getting most or all of their meals away from home: at sit-down and fast-food restaurants, schools and supermarket hot-food counters. The New York-based NPD consumer research group last year found that for the first time ever, more than half of all restaurant meals were taken out, rather than eaten in the restaurant. So even when people are eating at home, they often let a restaurant ladle it out.

``The trend for portion sizes is they're getting bigger, and it's not just restaurants,'' says Alyson Escobar of the USDA's Center For Nutrition Policy and Promotion. ``It's delis, sandwich places, even the `single-serving' bags and bottles in supermarkets; bakeries with mega-muffins and bigger bagels.''

Obesity is tied to several factors, Escobar notes, including caloric intake and exercise. But she also lists changes in dining habits, such as restaurant buffets that ``used to just be salad, and now have chicken wings, pasta and beef,'' she says.

Generous servings in American restaurants are nothing new. For those who could afford to eat out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ordering copious amounts of food was a sign of prosperity.

``Freedom from want too often boiled over into profligacy and excess among those who had too much,'' restaurant columnist John Mariani writes in America Eats Out (Morrow, 1991). ``Nowhere was this more evident than in the restaurants of the Gilded Age, rococo palaces that catered to this new leisure class in extravagant dining rooms where conspicuous consumption was not only accepted but encouraged and marveled at.''

For generations, diners of all classes thought of a restaurant meal as a special event, a time to treat oneself. Now that eating out is commonplace, consumers may have trouble letting go of that custom.

``The idea to keep in mind is that it is still a treat to go to a restaurant, but it's not your birthday every day,'' Gollman says.

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