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Food Portion Confusion
Choosing the right amount of food to eat for a given meal or snack can be a challenge for many people. Portion sizes can vary widely and are often determined by restaurants, food manufacturers, advertisements, the social environment, the family member that prepares meals in the home or each one of us when confronted by food.
One study notes that in the 1970s, food portions began to increase in size.1 Over time, food portions continued to get larger, and these larger portions eventually became normalized into the ethos of everyday living. While the FDA provides education to the public on how to read nutrition labels and how to think about the portioning of foods, conflicting information about portion sizes still makes it difficult to determine when overeating has occurred. 2
Overeating
Overeating is defined as eating in excess and beyond one’s nutritional or energy need. In another study, participants were asked how they would define overeating. The participants endorsed “eating outside of hunger” as the most common definition followed by “lack of restraint”, “mindless eating” and “eating more than some normative amount.” 3
Overeating can be an objective or subjective experience and implicates a combination of interpreting food labels and understanding one’s satiety threshold. While it can come with its own potential effects on a person’s psychological well-being, it is different than the mental health condition known as binge eating disorder (BED).
Binge Eating Disorder (BED)
BED affects approximately 2.4% of the population, with higher rates in females as compared to males. It can occur across the lifespan and is more likely to occur in more developed countries such as the United States. BED can present in people across weight categories who meet medical criteria for being average weight, overweight or obese. Genetic, biological, social and environmental factors all play a role in the development and maintenance of this condition.4 BED is accompanied by a heightened risk of developing medical conditions including, but not limited to, obesity, type 2 diabetes, sleep issues, gastrointestinal distress and metabolic syndrome.5 BED also commonly co-occurs with other mental health conditions such as mood disorders, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.6
The symptoms of BED may include some or all of the following (see footnote 4):
- Inability to stop oneself or slowdown from eating objectively large amounts of food in a discrete amount of time
- Lacking control when in the presence of food during this discrete time period
- Eating more quickly than usual
- Eating past fullness
- Being physically uncomfortable during or after eating
- Eating even when not hungry
- Emotional distress after eating
- Eating alone or in secret
- No excessive exercise, purging behavior, laxative use, or restriction of food
- Binge eating episodes persist each week for at least 3 months
BED Treatment
If you or someone you know may be experiencing these symptoms, consider being evaluated by an eating disorder specialist. Cognitive behavior therapy is a well-established time-limited empirical treatment approach for BED. To learn more, please contact the AICT intake coordinator at 212-308-2440.
1 Young, L. R., & Nestle, M. (2002). The contribution of expanding portion sizes to the US obesity epidemic. American journal of public health, 92(2), 246–249. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.92.2.246
2 https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-education-resources-materials/nutrition-facts-label
3 Long, E. V., Vartanian, L. R., Herman, C. P., & Polivy, J. (2020). What does it mean to overeat?. Eating behaviors, 37, 101390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2020.101390.
4 American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).
5 Giel, K. E., Bulik, C. M., Fernandez-Aranda, F., Hay, P., Keski-Rahkonen, A., Schag, K., Schmidt, U., & Zipfel, S. (2022). Binge eating disorder. Nature reviews. Disease primers, 8(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-022-00344-y
6 Mars JA, Iqbal A, Rehman A. Binge Eating Disorder. [Updated 2024 Aug 11]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2026 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK551700/
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