Artful research: Analyzing religious paintings reveals an upward trend in portion sizes.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—We like to blame America's obesity epidemic on the sugar, salt, and fat food makers cram into modern-day food, and the mammoth portion sizes now served up at fast-food joints like McDonald's. These culprits undoubtedly play a role in the problem, but the issue of growing portion sizes is hardly new, if you believe that art imitates life.

According to new research analyzing dozens of famous Last Supper paintings created over the last millennium, portion and plate sizes in the paintings have been getting bigger and bigger over the last several hundred years. "I think people assume that increased serving sizes, or 'portion distortion,' is a recent phenomenon," says study coauthor Brian Wansink, PhD, professor and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. "But this research indicates that it’s a general trend for at least the last millennium."

THE DETAILS: Researchers of the study, published in the April issue of the International Journal of Obesity, analyzed portion sizes relative to the head sizes of the figures in 52 of the most well-known Last Supper paintings created over about the last 1,000 years. Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, teamed up with his brother, Craig Wansink, PhD, professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College, and analyzed the sizes of the different foods over the 1,000 years of Last Supper paintings. They found that portions of foods, including bread, and even the plate sizes, grew significantly bigger throughout the years. The main courses in the painting grew in size by nearly 70 percent, the plate sizes expanded by 66 percent, and bread size by 23 percent.

Read on to find out how you can take control of your portion sizes.