I once heard of a study where they took a bunch of people and gave them soup to eat. Half of the people had a normal bowl of soup, but the other half had special bowls that would slowly refill themselves through a tube connected to the bottom of the bowl. The people with the normal bowls of soup stopped when the soup was gone. The people with the neverending bowl just didn't stop. They stuffed themselves.
That's one of the things about an American diet, is that we're so used to eating much larger than normal potion sizes that we've long forgotten how to tell when we're full. I remember complaining once when I was younger that my Dad (who is not a land whale, but is larger than he should be) would eat all of the good leftovers before anyone else got to them, rather than splitting them evenly with the rest of the family. He responded that he was bigger, so he needed more food than we did. My comment (honestly, I forgot if this was something I actually said to him, or if I just thought is) was that he had that the other way around. He ate more food, THEREFORE he was bigger.
My sister spent three months in Europe living with relatives in Germany a little while ago, and she said she was worried when she saw the portion sizes they used when cooking at home and in restaurants. She thought there was no way she'd get full on that, but the thing was that she did get full, she was just so used to American portion sizes that the more healthy Euopean ones looked tiny. Did you know that the average muffin sold in a bakery or donut shop is FOUR TIMES the size of a "normal" one-serving muffin?
Our culture is obese, not just the individual people in it, especially in the south, and a lot of it is simply portion sizes. We're used to thinking that more food is good. Lately I've been trying to cut down my own weight (slightly more than healthy) by watching my portion sizes. I asked my BF (who does the cooking) not to fill my plate for me, but to let me get my own portions. I've been putting on half or less of what I feel like I'd eat, telling myself that if I want more food later then I can get seconds. I eat slowly, and I find myself still finishing my "firsts" when my BF gets up and starts to put the food away, and I'm usually fine with that. I didn't need seconds, but if that amount of food had been on my plate I would've eaten it all.
It's a very human thing to do, cleaning one's plate. The trick is to make sure that there's not much on your plate in the first place. You'd be surprised how little you can eat to stop feeling hungry.
