Reduce Portion Distortion in Kids

Healthy Portion Sizes

Kids are on the right track to eating and growing healthy when they follow the recommended diet charts and pediatric counsel for their daily servings. Sadly, today’s generation suffers from “portion distortion”. Let’s get a brief glimpse of some of the definitions related to the eating habits of children.

Know your “Serving Size” and “Portion Size”
A serving usually adheres to a clear-cut quantity of food or drink expressed using measures such as cups, grams or tablespoons. This is the common term used to denote servings in diet charts (the quantity kids should consume) and the serving size on Nutrition Facts labels, which provide the foundation for rest of the nutrition information on the label. The serving size listed on the Nutrition Facts Label varies from the diet chart recommendations on serving size. Diet chart recommendations are in fact smaller that the Nutrition Facts Label. Nutrition Facts Panel is explained in detail at www.firsteatright.com.

A portion generally denotes the quantity of food that ends up on the plate. A portion size is the total amount of food consumed by the kids during breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks. Portions can be bigger or smaller than the recommended serving size.

Envisage Portion Sizes with your Favorite Object
‘Kids are kids’ and they eat what their mommies feed them. Hence, they might not be familiar with portion sizes. You cannot expect a kid to exactly fill half of his cup with pasta, take 85 grams of chicken or just spread two tablespoons of peanut butter. This is one of their biggest problems for not following the recommended serving sizes.

But kids are smart enough to correlate portions and serving recommendations with their favorite tennis ball or games CD. Hence before they get anything onto their plate, they can visualize the appropriate object and fill their plate with matching portion sizes.

Visualizing with Objects Serves the Purpose

Tabulated are some useful tips that would help anyone with correlating the exact portion sizes for the different food groups:

Grains Group:

Food	​Portion Size	About the Size of...
Bread	28 grams or 1 regular slice	CD cover
Dry cereal	​28 grams or 1 cup	Baseball
​Cooked cereal, rice or pasta	​28 grams or ½ cup	½ baseball
​Pancake or waffle	28 grams or 1 small piece (6 inches)	CD
​Bagel, hamburger bun	Bagel, hamburger bun	​Hockey puck (3-inch diameter disk)
Makki di roti	1 piece	​Bar of soap

Fruits Group:

Orange, apple, pear	1 small fruit (2½ inches in diameter)	Tennis ball
Raisins	¼ cup	Golf ball

​Vegetable Group:

Baked potato	1 medium	Computer mouse
Vegetables, chopped or salad	1 cup	Baseball

​Dairy Group:

Fat-free or low-fat milk or yogurt	1 cup	Baseball
Cheese	​42.5 grams natural cheese or 56 grams processed cheese	​9-volt battery
Ice cream	​½ cup	​½ baseball

​Protein Foods Group:

Lean beef or poultry	​85 grams	​Deck of cards
​Grilled or baked fish	85 grams	​Checkbook
​Peanut butter	​2 tablespoons	​Ping-pong ball

​Oils Group:

Margarine	1 teaspoon	​Standard postage stamp
Oil or salad dressing	​1 teaspoon	​Standard cap on a 0.5-liter water bottle