In ground-breaking research conducted by the University of Cambridge, it has been discovered that “people consistently consume more food and drink when offered larger-sized portions, packages or tableware.”
 
In other words, if you are offered more food, you tend to eat more food. Anyone who has visited a buffet restaurant could have drawn the same conclusion.
 
Other factors that influence consumption decisions apparently include the size of crockery, cutlery or glassware. Your knife and fork may be tricking you into eating more. A slightly more convincing factor is the packaging of food (for instance, multi-pack or bulk). I cannot be the only one who can attest to the regret experienced after devouring a packet of chips in one sitting.
 
So, overeating can be attributed to overserving. That is reasonably uncontroversial. Overeating can in turn result in poor health outcomes (though outcomes will vary from person to person).
 
Surely the solution is obvious: if you are prone to negative health outcomes, eat less.
 
Not so, according to the public health academics at Cambridge. They recommend upper-limits on serving sizes for fatty and sugary foods and limits on the sizes of crockery, cutlery and glasses.
 
They also suggest restricting the practice of pricing larger portions less, and restricting price promotions on larger portion and package sizes. So they would deny consumers “value for money”, even though it often costs companies less to produce those larger sizes due to decreasing marginal costs.
 
Is it not wrong to charge budget-conscious families more for bulk and family-size snacks and meals, simply because some people choose to consume more than the recommended helping? And a body builder will have different consumption needs compared with, say, an economist. It’s a one-size-fits-all approach that assumes everyone’s size is unhealthy.
 
If policy-makers simply want to make overeating inconvenient, they could just mandate all Westerners eat with chopsticks.
 
Has it occurred to the researchers that not all adults wish to optimise their health at all times? Eating an entire block of chocolate may be a cathartic experience for some. Who are the researchers and regulators to prioritise physical health over happiness for the entire population?
 
There may be starving kids in Africa, but apparently there are also adults in the West who feel compelled to eat much more than they need because they use a large knife and fork.