Americans' lust for increasingly large food portions isn't a new thing, and it isn't intrinsically American, a recent study suggests. In a report published today (behind paywall) on the International Journal of Obesity website, Brian Wansink and his brother Gary theorize that portion sizes have linearly increased over the past millennium. They came to this point of view by studying 52 artists' renderings of the "most famous dinner party in history," the New Testament's Last Supper, as depicted between the year 1000 and the year 2000.
Over the course of the millennium, the Wansinks found that the entrees depicted on the plates grew by about 70%, and the bread by 23%. Of course, when you've got bigger portions you need bigger plates (unless you're just going to own it and eat from a trough), so those grew too, by 65.6%. The report suggests that modern industrial farming and takeout food portion growth aren't the main culprits in super-sizing. Rather, our appetites expanded because of "dramatic socio-historic increases in the production, availability, safety, abundance and affordability of food" over the past millennium. So maybe we can't blame Grimace and the King for our enormous girth, but at least we can blame Jesusartistsprosperity.
