I found an article on CNN.com about the amount of food people consume and the factors that have an affect on food intake. I was surprised to read that our stomachs are ordinarily the size of a fist, but can expand to hold up to 3 liters of food! That's the size of a football! I don't know that I would recommend eating that much, but you could if you wanted to. The article also talks about how the people you are with effect how much you eat. It says that most people follow the lead of one person and will eat more if the other person is eating a lot. Another interesting point is that it takes your body about twenty minutes to digest your food and for glucose to make it into the bloodstream. Therefore, if you eat your food too fast, your body does not have enough time to tell you to slow down or stop eating when you have consumed enough food. The article also talks about the different nutrients you should consume that help tell your body when you have had enough. The best nutrients to eat are proteins and carbohydrates. The carbohydrates should be whole grains instead of refined sugars or flours, because this gives the body more fiber. Proteins somehow tell your body when to stop eating them, but the mechanism of how this happens is unclear. I found this article to be very interesting and would recommend reading it. It also talks about a study they did where they had bowls of soup refilling automatically to see how much people would eat!
Here's the link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/01/26/CL.satisfaction.guaranteed/index.html
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When I read this post, I remembered someone telling me that if you train yourself to eat less food, after a while, your stomach will shrink and you would naturally lose weight. It seemed kind of ridiculous to me so I looked it up and found this link: http://www.chow.com/stories/10307
Your stomach is pretty much the same size throughout your life. Apparently, the only way to reduce your stomach size is through gastric bypass surgery.
I find the ability of our stomachs to expand to such a large size incredibly intriguing. However,I don't fully agree with the idea that the amount people eat influence the amount we eat. This might be correct to a certain degree, but I think there are other larger factors that might contribute to our decision of how much food to eat. These other factors could be the amount a person has eaten throughout the day or their current mood.
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