but when people like that bloomberg cunt stain decide to push soda restrictions or diet regulation it makes me shake my head.
The regulation sounds ridiculous, but it's actually grounded in solid and robust research findings.
People don't have a clear preference for whether they want a 24oz or 32oz soda. They know they're thirsty and they want a coke. So you're a business and you realize that soda costs you pretty much nothing to sell, but you can charge significantly more for larger sizes. Plus, the large sizes will seem like a bargain compared to the smaller ones - double the size for an extra buck! You have an incentive to keep offering larger versions, not because people will buy the largest, but because it makes the largest sizes less outrageous in comparison.
Thus, people will buy larger sodas, you make more money... and their health suffers, for which everyone pays.
Hence you end up with this huge sizes by various franchises: again, not because they actually expect you to buy this one, but because 42oz seems pretty reasonable when the largest is 128oz.
(I found this through Google Images; I don't get my facts from MJ.)
There's an arms race to offering larger sizes, because if one store gives you 128oz for some price, you can't very well charge the same for 32oz - even though the marginal cost difference is virtually nil. Hence why there's a case for regulation to step in and limit where this is going.
The same is true for other products, of course. Popcorn sizes in movie theaters are a wonderful example:
(
Image Source, taken from NPR)
Again, popcorn is dirt cheap to produce and nobody wants to be the guy with the maximum sized bucket. So the maximum keeps getting bigger, which in turn drives sales of the 3rd and 2nd largest products. (Great deal compared to smaller sizes! As long as you exclude health costs.)
Note that, particularly with sodas, you can usually still get a free refill that nobody is banning. It turns out, however, that people will drink a 32oz cup of soda, but if they get a 16oz cup, they won't go for the free refill. Why is that? If they had a clear preference for 32oz of coke, they'd go and get the refill. However, most end up not being thirsty after finishing even 16oz.
This actually plays into one of my favorite studies on the topic of eating:
Bottomless Bowls
OBJECTIVE:
Using self-refilling soup bowls, this study examined whether visual cues related to portion size can influence intake volume without altering either estimated intake or satiation.
RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES:
Fifty-four participants (BMI, 17.3 to 36.0 kg/m2; 18 to 46 years of age) were recruited to participate in a study involving soup. The experiment was a between-subject design with two visibility levels: 1) an accurate visual cue of a food portion (normal bowl) vs. 2) a biased visual cue (self-refilling bowl). The soup apparatus was housed in a modified restaurant-style table in which two of four bowls slowly and imperceptibly refilled as their contents were consumed. Outcomes included intake volume, intake estimation, consumption monitoring, and satiety.
RESULTS:
Participants who were unknowingly eating from self-refilling bowls ate more soup [14.7+/-8.4 vs. 8.5+/-6.1 oz; F(1,52)=8.99; p<0.01] than those eating from normal soup bowls.However, despite consuming 73% more, they did not believe they had consumed more, nor did they perceive themselves as more sated than those eating from normal bowls. This was unaffected by BMI.
DISCUSSION:
These findings are consistent with the notion that the amount of food on a plate or bowl increases intake because it influences consumption norms and expectations and it lessens one's reliance on self-monitoring. It seems that people use their eyes to count calories and not their stomachs. The importance of having salient, accurate visual cues can play an important role in the prevention of unintentional overeating.
This study was published 8 years ago. It's really about time someone made use of it for regulatory purposes.
