Are you eating too much?
1
How to measure a portion size.
- Health hub/
- Weight management/
- Are you eating too much?
If you have been upsizing your serving sizes, then you may also be seeing an increase in your dress or pants size. Portion size is vital for weight control, because the bigger the meal, the more kilojoules you consume.
Yet many people are uncertain about what makes up a standard portion for each food group.
Nutrition labels offer some guide, but the serving sizes listed may be different from those recommended by health authorities. To get an accurate picture of what a serving is, it helps to have a size comparison to give you an object to refer to.
The following table gives you a baseline for the minimum number of servings of the key food groups recommended for adults, and also includes a size comparison to help visualise the portion.
Measuring a standard portion
| Food Group | Serving per day* | Standard Serving | Size comparison |
| Meat or alternatives |
1-2 | 2/3 cup cooked beans or lentils 1 egg (4-6 per week) 100 grams of cooked lean beef, poultry, or fish |
One serve of meat is about the size of the palm of your hand, or a deck of cards |
| Dairy | 2 – 3 | 1 cup (250ml) low fat milk 30 grams of cheese 1 small tub yoghurt |
One serving of hard cheese is about the size of a standard matchbox |
| Fruit | 1 – 2 | 1 medium apple, orange, banana 2 small apricots, plums, etc 1/2 cup fruit salad |
1/2 cup of cut fruit is about the size of a computer mouse |
| Vegetables | 4 - 5 | 1 medium potato 1/2 cup cooked vegetables 1 cup salad vegetables |
½ cup cooked vegetables is about the size of a tennis ball |
| Breads and cereals | 4 – 5 | 1 slice wholegrain bread 1/2 cup of cooked pasta or rice 1 small bowl of breakfast cereal |
One serve of rice, pasta or noodles is about the size of a baseball |
* The exact amount of servings you need can vary depending on your age, gender, weight and activity level.
Another way to help keep your portions in proportion is to measure and weigh your food for few days. Seeing what an accurate serving size looks like will help to gauge how much of a food you should be eating.
Is portion size an issue that impacts upon your body shape? Do you have any strategies to keep your portion sizes in check?
We accept
