NOT SO HEALTHY

THE ‘healthy’ practices that can be surprisingly bad for you. This week: Eating off a smaller plate IT’S long been suggested as a way to make us eat smaller portions, but when researchers assessed the evidence last year — and tried an experiment asking people to eat popcorn from a large, then small, bowl — they found the smaller crockery actually made people eat more.

Dr Eric Robinson, a researcher in psychological sciences who led the study, suggested this might be because we find it hard to cut back on the amount we consume, as it leaves us feeling restricted, so we go back for second helpings when the first doesn’t satisfy us.

‘It’s a better idea to be clever about what you eat and make your diet less energy-dense — so the amount you consume is the same, but contains fewer calories,’ he says.

‘For example, you may add vegetables to bulk out a pasta dish rather than having pasta on its own.’