Iowans have gotten so used to having their restaurant meals super-sized that they’re eating a lot more at home too and one expert says our waistlines are also getting super-sized. Portion control is a must according to registered dietician Cindy Conroy, director of the Iowa Heart Center’s Lipid Clinic. She says over the past decade or two, serving sizes have grown for most foods like hamburgers, tacos, ice cream and pie. Conroy says servings should be about the size of a fist, a deck of cards or a tennis ball.Conroy says people today tend to buy ten-inch dinner plates when, back in the 50s and 60s, dinner plates were only seven or eight inches. She suggests buying smaller plates to make smaller portions look bigger. The U-S-D-A defines a serving of meat as two to three ounces, but Conroy says a fast food hamburger can average twice that while a homemade burger may account for as many as three servings of meat. With extra food comes extra calories. Without a change, she says we’ll see more cases of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
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