Americans sometimes wonder how the obesity epidemic has gotten so out of hand. What are other countries doing right that we are getting so wrong?
In two words: portion control.
The week before I came to China, I travelled to DC and spent five days hanging out and going to restaurants with friends. It seemed that wherever I went and whoever I saw, getting food with them was so required it was assumed I would eat once I got to the restaurant. And not just eat a little, but a lot.
I have often felt that pressure from friends and sometimes family—to eat more than is comfortable. I do it sometimes just to avoid comments, or to avoid even the threat of a comment. It can be a very frustrating thing to be constantly asked why I don’t eat more.
I know how much it takes to make me full, so why are you questioning my judgment? What often ends up happening is that I overstuff myself, feel resentful of the resulting extra poundage and of the judgment that forced me to eat more than I wanted in the first place.
Since coming to China, however, I have felt none of that. I have almost felt the opposite—hunger pangs.
The first meal I ate was dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Many small plates of noodles, meat, and vegetables are presented on a Lazy Susan—a round table that you can spin in order to access all the dishes in the circle.
A friend of mine commented on how Americans could quickly lose weight if they had to use chopsticks, since you are forced to take smaller chunks more slowly. I think it has more to do with the type of food served—lean meat and fish served with many different kinds of vegetables and filling noodles, not to mention the most important part—small portions.
It is frowned upon in China if you take a dish from the Lazy Susan and fork it out onto your plate. You are only supposed to take small portions at a time, and forking it out would represent a serious faux paus. Eating in China is all about sharing, but unlike America, the portions are much smaller.
For the first breakfast we ate, the Chinese students provided us with small plates to use for gathering food. These plates would only be used to hold a pastry in America, and that pastry would be a small portion of the entire breakfast. In China however, bananas were cut into thirds, the eggs were cooked in tiny clumps, and the bread that was served went without sugar and butter. I ate at 8am and was hungry by 10am—even though I had gotten seconds.
So the moral of the story? If you want to lose weight, come to China. Or perhaps separate that restaurant dish into two or three meals…
Rob Hayes says: 
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