Portion size me: Plate-size induced consumption norms and win-win solutions for reducing food intake and waste.

Abstract

Research on the self-serving of food has empirically ignored the role that visual consumption norms play in determining how much food we serve on different sized dinnerware. We contend that dinnerware provides a visual anchor of an appropriate fill-level, which in turn, serves as a consumption norm (Study 1). The trouble with these dinnerware-suggested consumption norms is that they vary directly with dinnerware size--Study 2 shows Chinese buffet diners with large plates served 52% more, ate 45% more, and wasted 135% more food than those with smaller plates. Moreover, education does not appear effective in reducing such biases. Even a 60-min, interactive, multimedia warning on the dangers of using large plates had seemingly no impact on 209 health conference attendees, who subsequently served nearly twice as much food when given a large buffet plate 2 hr later (Study 3). These findings suggest that people may have a visual plate-fill level--perhaps 70% full--that they anchor on when determining the appropriate consumption norm and serving themselves. Study 4 suggests that the Delboeuf illusion offers an explanation why people do not fully adjust away from this fill-level anchor and continue to be biased across a large range of dishware sizes. These findings have surprisingly wide-ranging win-win implications for the welfare of consumers as well as for food service managers, restaurateurs, packaged goods managers, and public policy officials.

Healthy diet: Health impact, prevalence, correlates, and interventions

“…the healthy choice) easier to make (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). Examples of healthy eating nudges include placing fruit at the cash registry instead of candy bars, which increased fruit intake (Kroese, Marchiori, & De Ridder, 2016), implicitly signalling a social norm by displaying packaging of healthy snacks, influencing food choice between healthy and unhealthy food choices (Prinsen et al, 2013), traffic light labelling of foods, leading to increased nutrient knowledge as well as identification of health as an important factor in purchasing decisions (Roberto et al, 2012;Sonnenberg et al, 2013), and changing default portion sizes or choices, although results are mixed: one paper reports similar energy intake with smaller versus bigger plates, with bigger plates having the advantage of more vegetable sidedishes (Libotte, Siegrist, & Bucher, 2014) whereas another warns against the danger of overeating with big plates (Wansink & Van Ittersum, 2013).…”

Consumer-Related Food Waste: Causes and Potential for Action

“…However, research in food service environments has also shown that various "nudges" can reduce waste. For example, switching to a tray-less system [31], reducing plate size [32,33] and welcoming repeated helpings [32]. Moreover, the mere communication of a restaurant's intent to reduce food waste has been shown to trigger consumers to waste less food [34].…”

Towards a More Sustainable Food Supply Chain: Opening up Invisible Waste in Food Service

“…Furthermore, Wansink [46] did research on the influence of dinnerware size on self-serving food waste concluding that diners with large plates wasted a lot more food than those with smaller plates. Related to the influence of dinnerware on food waste, Kim and Morawski [47] suggested that the removal of trays in universities resulted in reduced food waste.…”