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If you鈥檝e been struggling to keep the weight off, you won鈥檛 be surprised to hear that portion sizes for Australia鈥檚 most commonly consumed junk foods have increased significantly. Between 1995 and 2012, pizza and cake kilojoules rose听a sizeable 66%.

Researchers at the have found that Australians are eating even bigger portions of food full of fat, sugar and salt.

Comparing data from 1995 to 2012, they听found portion sizes for many听of Australia鈥檚 most commonly consumed junk foods have risen significantly.

In addition to pizza and cake portions growing, typical portions of sausages, cereal bars, processed meats, ice-cream and wine have increased in size, too.

Dr Miaobing Zheng, of The George Institute for Global Health, said the results were worrying given that discretionary foods contribute about a third of Australia鈥檚 daily energy intake. 鈥淥ver the past two decades we found that foods which provide very little nutritional benefit have surged in size, and this is helping to fuel Australia鈥檚 obesity epidemic.

鈥淲e had expected portion sizes to have grown but we were still surprised by just how much. It鈥檚 pretty disturbing that an average slice of cake has increased in size so much it now contains almost 1000 kilojoules more than it did two decades ago.鈥�

The study published in the journal听听also found the portion sizes of pastries, snack foods (potato crisps, popcorn, corn chips) and potato fries had actually decreased.

Research Fellow Zheng added: 鈥淲e aren鈥檛 100%听sure why the portion sizes of these foods reduced, but if you take fries, for example, most fast food chains offer small portions, so it could be the case that people recognise these foods are unhealthy and consciously try and eat less of them. 听But unfortunately these foods items were the exception, not the norm.

鈥淲e know that people often under-report the amount of food and drink they consume, especially if they consider them 鈥榖ad鈥� foods. So the true picture of what Australians are eating could be much worse.鈥�

The team examined data from two different Australia-wide surveys 鈥� the 1995 National Nutrition Survey and the 2011鈥�2012 National Nutrition Physical Activity Survey. Participants were asked to record everything they had eaten in a 24-hour period and were given photos and measuring guides to help them asses the size of their portions accurately.

Data was also recorded by age and sex. 听Researchers found serves of ice-cream eaten by women had increased in size by nearly a third.

Image credit: 漏stock.adobe.com/au/vladimirfloyd

Originally published