Are Your Dinner Plates Too Big?

By Karen Cicero for Completely You
Yesterday, I was standing in my office (see last week’s post) when some Australian news caught my eye. (You have my word that I wasn’t Googling Hugh Jackman.) I ran across a study that three researchers from Down Under did comparing the sizes of one of my favorite things to drool over at Macy’s: dinner plates.

Their premise was pretty simple: They wanted to see how many calories 8-inch plates would hold compared to 10-inch ones. The results made my jaw drop: If the bigger plates were flat, they stashed 67 percent more calories than the smaller ones; if they had a little depth to them, the 10-inchers could hold twice as many calories as their tinier counterparts. I ran into the kitchen with my daughter’s Hello Kitty ruler, swung open the cabinet door and started measuring my dinner-plate stash. Twelve inches for Martha! Eleven inches for Mikasa! Ten inches for Williams Sonoma! OMG!

Once the shock wore off, I shot off an email to the study’s lead researcher, Steve Pratt, nutrition and physical activity manager for the Cancer Council of Western Australia. I wanted to know if the plates hold more, does that mean I’ll take more, eat more and, ultimately, weigh more? His answer in a nutshell: Yes. He pointed out that other studies, including those at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., suggest that people consume hundreds of calories more a day when plates are just 2 inches wider, and that the reverse is true too. If I ditched my 10-inch plates for 8-inch ones, then I’d probably save myself at least 200 calories a day -- enough to lose 2 pounds a month.

I was dreaming of a Macy’s shopping spree for smaller plates and, down the road, smaller clothes, when I got to the last line of Pratt’s email: “Try using your salad plate for everyday meals, and save your bigger dinnerware for special occasions.” Back to the cabinet with Hello Kitty. My salad plates are, in fact, 8 inches wide. I set the table with them tonight while making pork tenderloin, roasted sweet potatoes, and green beans. As soon as I called everyone to dinner, my daughter asked in a concerned voice, “Mom, did you shrink the plates in the dishwasher?”

Oh, well.

Everything seemed to be going OK until we all rationalized that we deserved seconds because “our plates were so small.” In the end, I think we probably ate about the same as usual -- maybe a little less. At least for us, switching to a plate that was 3 inches smaller was too drastic. But I’m not back to square one: I’ve decided to phase in downsized dinnerware. I’ll start doing what Pratt suggested: saving foot-long plates for special occasions. For now, we’ll eat on 10-inch plates, and I’ll put 9-inchers on my birthday list. By spring, I’m guessing that going 1 inch smaller won’t seem like a big deal -- and will help me lose countless inches elsewhere! Stay tuned!

How big are your plates? Share below or tweet me @Completely_You

About Karen Cicero:

I’m Completely You’s “Need to Know” blogger. A health journalist and magazine editor with more than 15 years of experience, I’ve contributed to such publications as Prevention, Self and Health, and have edited the dental column for Heart & Soul magazine.