MyPlate – Size Matters

Updated 3/2017-- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active. 

The new food “pyramid” was unveiled this past Thursday.  It is now in a much simpler form – a plate.  What I didn’t find defined at the ChooseMyPlate website is the plate size. 
So I googled “standard dinner plate size.”  Here is the answer:

It can be helpful to know the manufacturers intended use for an item, but it is important to remember that you can use the item in whatever way that works for you!

Dinner plate 10 to 10 3/4"
Luncheon plate 9 to 9 1/2"
Salad plate 8 to 8 3/4"
Bread and butter plate 5 to 7 3/4" (usually about 6")

When found, dessert plates are generally somewhere between salad plates and bread and butter plates in size. Dessert plates are not common, so the salad plate doubles as a dessert plate in most patterns.

Another size that you might see in a pattern is one that is larger than a dinner plate. These are frequently call buffet plates, service plates or chargers and are usually 11" to 12" in diameter.

Chris Maddera makes this point in his essay:  The Psychology of Dinner Plates  (bold emphasis is mine)

….the size of our dinner plates was a major contributing factor of Americans becoming overweight.

Here’s the way it works: the diameter of a typical American dinner plate is 11 inches; the diameter of a typical European dinner plate is 9 inches. r² shows that the 2-inch difference amounts to the 11-inch plate having 50% more surface area than the 9-inch plate. If, like most people, you fill your plate, you’re putting 50% more food on it than a person with the 9-inch plate.

This means we’re eating 50% more food, since we usually eat whatever is on our plates. Or, to look at it differently, we feel full when our plate is empty.

By the way, some restaurants use 13-inch plates, which means it’s twice as big as the 9-inch plate.

Size of the plate matters as does the choice of food we put on it.  Don’t use the larger plates for your children or if you are a petite female.  Consider not covering up the entire surface area.

And don’t forget to get up and move – walk, swim, dance, bowl, etc. 

Nutrition and Wound Healing

Updated 3/2017-- all links removed as many are no longer active and it was easier than checking each one.

Nutrition, or rather the new USDA Dietary Guidelines, have been in the news this week.  It seem apropos to take not of a recent article in the supplement to the January issue of the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Journal discussing nutrition and wound healing (full reference below).

The article presents an update on new developments in the field of nutrition and wound healing, not an exhaustive review of the field.

As the authors point out “most operations in well-nourished patients are successful, with uncomplicated healing responses, even if nutritional intake is absent or curtailed for 7 to 10 days.”   It’s the patient with trauma, cancer, chronic illnesses, mal-absorption issues where this is most important.

First and foremost, the nutritional assessment should begin with a complete history and physical.  The authors reference the second article below for this statistic:

This alone has been found to be 80 to 90 percent accurate in evaluating patient nutritional status, and the addition of multiple or complex biochemical, immune, or anthropometric measurements does not increase greatly the accuracy of nutritional assessment.

Malnutrition should be considered if the history reveals unintentional weight loss (20% weight loss is indicative of severe malnutrition), if the patient appears cachectic with obvious muscle wasting, or if the patient has a history of or reason for alimentary malabsorption.  It must also be remembered that Obese Patients are at High Risk for Malnutrition in the Hospitalized Setting.

If the patient is found to be malnourished prior to an elective surgery, this should be corrected.  As the authors point out:

Determining who would truly benefit from nutritional supplementation is still a matter of some debate, but there is evidence that preoperative nutritional support reduces infectious complications and anastomotic breakdown in severely malnourished patients undergoing major elective surgery.

Postoperative nutritional support should be considered in patients expected to be unable to eat for a period of at least 2 weeks.

Other key points from the article:

• Enteral feeding is superior to parenteral feeding when possible.
• Fish oil supplements (omega-3 fatty acids) adversely impacts the healing response.
• Vitamin C deficiency, in addition to impairing wound healing, has also been associated with an increased susceptibility to wound infection.  Burn victims require as much as 1 to 2 g/day to restore urine and tissue levels to normal.
• Vitamin A deficiency impairs wound healing.  Vitamin A, administered either topically or systemically, reverses the antiinflammatory effects of corticosteroids on wound healing.
• The antiinflammatory properties of vitamin E are similar to those of steroids. Vitamin A can reverse the wound-healing impairment induced by vitamin E. Vitamin E has also been shown to affect various host immune functions, often in a negative fashion.
• Zinc deficiency impairs the critical roles each of these processes play in wound healing. Zinc levels less than 100 μg/dl have been associated with decreased fibroblast proliferation and collagen synthesis.

 

Related posts:
Nutritional Deficiency of Post-Bariatric Surgery Body Contouring Patients: What Every Plastic Surgeon Should Know -- An Article Review (September 3, 2008)
Herbal Supplements and Surgery Reviewed (April 30, 2009)
Local Wound Care for Malignant and Palliative Wounds – an Article Review (September 13, 2010)



REFERENCE

Nutrition and Wound Healing: An Update; Kavalukas, Sandra L.; Barbul, Adrian; Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery. 127():38S-43S, January 2011; doi: 10.1097/PRS.0b013e318201256c

Assessment of nutritional status; Jeejeebhoy KN, Detsky AS, Baker JP.;  JPEN J Parenter Enteral Nutr. 1990;14:193S–196S.