Friday, April 09, 2010

Last Supper Paintings Point to Ungodly Portions

Paintings Reveal That Plate, Portion Sizes Gradually Grew in the Past Millennium
By Bill Hendrick from WebMD Medical News Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD


March 24, 2010 -- Paintings of the Last Supper over the past millennium show that plate and food serving sizes have gotten larger throughout history, possibly foretelling today’s supersized portions, according to a new study.



The findings suggest that the phenomenon of serving bigger portions on bigger plates, which pushes people to overeat, has occurred gradually over the past 1,000 years, says co-author Brian Wansink, PhD, a marketing and economics professor at Cornell University and an expert on eating habits.

“We took the 52 most famous paintings of the Last Supper and analyzed the size of the entrees, bread, and plates, relative to the average size of the average head in the painting,” he says in a news release.


Wansink and his brother and co-author, Craig Wansink, professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College, used computer-aided design technology that allowed items in 52 paintings to be scanned, rotated, and calculated, regardless of the orientation of the objects in the artwork. “To account for the varying dimensions of the paintings, the average sizes of these items were indexed based on the average size of the heads depicted in the paintings,” the authors write.

The main discernable dishes depicted in the paintings included fish or eel (18%), lamb (14%), and pork (7%), and 46% of the paintings had no discernable main dish.

Last Supper' Portions Growing



The study, published in the April 2010 issue of the International Journal of Obesity, finds that the size of the entrees in Last Supper paintings has progressively increased 66%, plate size 66%, and bread size 23% in the past 1,000 years.

“The last thousand years have witnessed dramatic increases in the production, availability, safety, abundance, and affordability of food,” says Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.

“We think that as art imitates life, these changes have been reflected in paintings of history’s most famous dinner,” he says.



The researchers used 52 paintings depicting the Last Supper that were featured in the 2000 book Last Supper by Phaidon Press.

Craig Wansink tells WebMD in an email that “the use of the head in measuring the size of the bread was simply to focus on proportionality between the paintings.”

In short, the scholars say the trend of larger plates and portion sizes detected in recent years and linked to obesity is a phenomenon that started hundreds or even more than 1,000 years ago.

They examined 10 paintings of the Last Supper completed between 1000-1300, five done between 1300 and 1400, 15 between 1400 and 1500, 13 between 1500 ad 1600, and nine between 1600 and the year 2000.

“Perhaps the increasing portion sizes and food availability we have recently noticed is rooted in a general trend that has been artistically depicted for more than a millennium,” the authors write.

6 comments:

Luke said...

Was just wondering if you had the details of the time periods and artists of the paintings featured in this article? Thanks. :)

Anonymous said...

Wonderful blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo
News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in
Yahoo News? I've been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Cheers

Feel free to visit my web site - business branding and printing

Anonymous said...

What i don't realize is in fact how you are no longer really much more smartly-appreciated than you may be now. You're so intelligent.
You realize thus considerably in relation to this topic, made me in my
opinion consider it from numerous numerous angles.
Its like women and men don't seem to be involved except it is one thing to do with Lady gaga! Your personal stuffs nice. Always deal with it up!

My web site ... document imaging

Anonymous said...

What you posted was actually very logical. But, what about this?
suppose you composed a catchier title? I am not saying your
information is not solid, but what if you added a title that makes people want more?
I mean "Last Supper Paintings Point to Ungodly Portions" is a little
plain. You ought to glance at Yahoo's front page and note how they create news headlines to grab people interested. You might add a related video or a pic or two to grab readers interested about everything've got
to say. Just my opinion, it might make your posts a little
livelier.

my web-site; mine overseers ticket

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate
your efforts and I will be waiting for your next write
ups thanks once again.

My site :: key holders Durban

Anonymous said...

Nice blog here! Also your website loads up fast! What host are you using?
Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol

Also visit my blog; work with recommended venues