Cereal packaging pictures can promote overserving

Food pictures on the front of packaging often implicitly suggest what should be an appropriate portion size. Researchers at the ONO Academic College in Israel studied the prevalence and potential effects of these implicit serving size suggestions on serving cereal.
They found that that portion size depictions on the front of 158 cereal boxes were 64.7% larger (221 vs. 134 calories) than the recommended portions on nutrition facts panels of those cereals. They also found that boxes that depicted exaggerated serving sizes led people to pour 17.8% more cereal. This was 42% over the suggested serving size. An article about the research is published in BMC Public Health.
Click here for the published article.

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