Big Portions May Make Kids Overeat

Parents love children with healthy appetites. But piling too much food on a preschooler's plate may encourage overeating, researchers at Penn State University warn.

In the first published study of the effect of portion size on food intake in preschoolers, 3-year-olds offered a larger-than-usual serving of macaroni and cheese resisted the opportunity to overeat, but 5-year-olds ate up.

"Young children have a natural capacity to self-regulate their food intake," said Dr. Barbara J. Rolls, lead author of the study and chair of nutrition in the university's College of Health and Human Development.

"But our study indicates that sometime between the age of 3 and 5 years of age, they learn to ignore their internal hunger signals and respond instead to other cues, including portion size," she said.

Get More, Eat More

Rolls and her colleagues published their findings in the February issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

The results of several previous studies, done at Penn State and elsewhere, have shown that adults eat more when served large portions. The current study, the first with children, shows that the learned behavior of ignoring internal hunger cues has very early roots, reaching back to the preschool period, Rolls said.

The researchers studied the eating habits of 32 preschool children enrolled in day-care programs at Penn State's University Child Development Lab with parental permission. Eight boys and eight girls were about 3½ years old; six boys and 10 girls were about 5.

On three different days, during their regular lunch period, the children were served macaroni and cheese, carrot sticks, applesauce and milk in either a small, medium or large portion.

The older children ate more of the macaroni and cheese when served larger portions; the younger children did not. The older children also consumed more calories from the entire meal when served the larger portion of macaroni and cheese; again, the younger children did not.

"We don't have all of the answers yet about why children begin to ignore their internal hunger cues," Rolls noted. "However, it's clear from this study that serving children larger-than-recommended portions encourages them to eat more than is necessary or prudent for their long-term good health."

Related Links:

• Health news, March 28, 2000: Scientists Find Weight-Gain Gene
• From Cyberdiet: What Size is a Serving?