Larger food portions can lead to excessive intake of food in adults and children. This phenomenon is known as the portion size effect. In the study 60 2nd year students (52 women and 8 men) of the of Field Food Science and Nutrition course at the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana evaluated the recommended portions of 12 selected foods. On the plates, the recommended portions of 10 foods which not belong to the group of recommended foods, either due to a higher salt, fat or sugar content, and are more popular among young people, were weighed. For comparison we added 2 foods that are known as healthy foods and are recommended to consume: apples and salad. The results show that the portion size of the individual foods was correctly evaluated by 7 % (candy) to 48 % (wafer) of students. This supports the hypothesis that the estimated portion size deviates from the actual portion size. We found that men's evaluations of portion size were more correct than women's evaluations. The results show that the frequency of food consumption has little or in some cases no effect on the correctness of portion size estimation. On average 45 % of respondents, regardless of whether they ate the food frequently or not, underestimated the portion size of the food. The sense of satiation or hunger affects the evaluation of portion size. Students who had a sense of hunger rated the portion sizes more correctly (29 % of correct evaluations) than those who had a sense of satiation (28%). Students with a sense of hunger were found to have underestimated the portion size more often (48 %), while respondents with a sense of satiation were more often found to have overestimated the portion size (29 %). Men with a sense of hunger (19 % of correct evaluations) estimated portions more correctly than women with a sense of hunger (9 % of correct evaluations). There are no significant differences in the percentage of correct evaluations of women and men with a sense of satiation.
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