Using smaller plates could help Australia battle its bulging waistline.

A new study suggests smaller plate sizes can help control how much we eat, under certain circumstances.

“Literally having too much on our plates is contributing to the growing obesity problem,” says Deakin University’s Professor Chris Dubelaar.

While it is commonly thought that smaller plates lead us to eat less, evidence has been hard to pin down.

Some studies show that this is the case, but others report that plate size has no effect on food consumption. The recent study was undertaken to help clear some of this confusion.

Experts analysed the results of 56 food studies, which collectively involved 3507 participants, to answer the question.

The results showed that plate size had a considerable effect on the amount of food consumed but only if the consumer self-served their portions, or portion size was varied in line with plate-size.

Across all the studies combined, doubling the plate size led to an average 44 per cent increase in consumption, with smaller plates (that were half the control plate size) resulting in a reduction of 20 – 25 per cent when compared with larger plate size.

Plate size had no effect on average in situations where portion sizes were held constant across plate sizes.

“The results of our research have resolved the confusion around plate size and how much food we eat,” Professor Dubelaar said.

“Our analysis supports the notion that plate size positively influences consumption when portions are self-served or varied in line with plate size, and if people do not know they are being watched.”

Professor Dubelaar explained that endless product choices and supersized marketing are part of the reason for our growing waistlines.

“Our body is not good at telling us we’ve had enough food. Basically it evolved in times when food was scarce, so if you can eat more then go for it, because tomorrow you may be hungry! That is also why we’re so good at storing fat,” he said.

“We are also eating more because portions, plates and packages are larger, yet we have hardly noticed this change.

“Based on what we now know through this study, wide-spread, long-term use of smaller plate sizes may help to reduce how much we eat and perhaps obesity in precisely the same way that we have become blind to how large plate sizes have become over time. Continual use of smaller plate sizes may be both habit forming and good for our health.”

The study, ‘Whether smaller plates reduce consumption depends on who’s serving and who’s looking: a meta-analysis’, has been published in The Behavioral Science of Eating, the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.