Several COPT fellows participated in the Penn State Graduate Exhibition, held on March 26th, 2017. This is an opportunity for Penn State graduate students to showcase their research and practice giving a 5-minute judged summary of their findings. Each student gave us a recap on their experience. We will be featuring one student per post as part of this series.
Faris Zuraikat
Congratulations to Faris for winning 1st place in the Health and Life Sciences Category. Way to go, Faris!!!
Q: What was the title of your presentation?
An offer you can’t refuse: serving larger portions leads to increased intake despite a year of portion-control training
Q: What were the main points of your presentation?
In a previous RCT, we trained women with overweight and obesity in different portion-control strategies to aid weight loss. Following the trial, we tested whether such training attenuated the portion size effect on intake. On 4 occasions, we served trained subjects and controls a lunch of foods across a range of energy density; across meals all foods were varied in portion size. We found that, despite extended portion-control training, serving larger portions increased meal intake in trial participants; this effect did not differ between the groups. However, across meals, trained participants moderated energy intake by consuming a lower meal ED than controls. We concluded that, while strategies to counter the portion size effect should be encouraged, reducing meal ED is an effective strategy to moderate energy intake in the presence of large portions.
