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When Duane Buck got into the fast-food business in 1966, customers at Bucky's Drive In had two choices when selecting drinks: a 12-ounce or a 16-ounce cup -- and the smaller size was the best seller.

Nearly 40 years later, all that has changed.

"I still have a 12-ounce drink that we use in the kids meal. The 16-ounce, which used to be the large, is now the small drink. Then we have a 24 ounce, 32 ounce and 44 ounce," says Buck, Bucky's owner.

"It's amazing how many people will come through that drive up and order a 32- or a 44-ounce drink, and they've already got a 32- or a 44-ounce (cup) that's empty, and they say, ‘Can you throw this away for me?'"

Buck figures that it can't be healthy, even though he's happy to ring up the sales.

What he has witnessed at his restaurant, 2120 W. Ninth St., is part of a larger trend that's taken over the way Americans eat and even think about eating. Ours has become a super-size nation, in which both portion sizes, and Americans themselves, are growing larger.

Everything from packaged foods to meal portions served in restaurants is getting bigger.

And we're gobbling it down.

The result: soaring rates of obesity and the health problems associated with it: diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and arthritis.

The implications are frightening, experts say.

"You can get scientists to argue anything, but you could find a vast majority of them to say that as (a person's) weight increases -- assuming that a good portion of that is fat -- the health risks and disease will go up, in particular diabetes," says Joseph Donnelly, director of the Center for Physical Activity and Weight Management, located in Kansas University's Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies.

"This would be an absolute disaster. One way or another, people are going to have to get a handle on this. We're going to have to have national health policy to deal with these issues."

A good way to start teasing apart this unsettling phenomenon is to look at portion sizes in this country, whether it's food purchased in a vending machine, supermarket or restaurant.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Assn. and the Journal of the American Dietetic Assn., portion sizes significantly have increased.

Nancy Donahey, a registered dietitian at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, cites these examples:

• In 1977, a typical soft drink was 13 ounces and had 144 calories. In 1998, the average size was 20 ounces and 193 calories.
• In 1977, the average cheeseburger was 5.8 ounces, containing about 400 calories. In 1998, those figures were up to 7.3 ounces and 530 calories.
• In 1954 at Burger King, the average hamburger was two ounces smaller than today's Junior Whopper.

"I think it's a definite trend in our country," says Ann Chapman, coordinator of nutrition services at KU's Watkins Memorial Health Center.

"Big business calls it value marketing -- offering more for less. A good example of that would be the super sizing of the meals at the hamburger chains. It's very successful because the consumer feels like they're getting more value, more food for their money. What they don't realize is they're getting hundreds of more calories and fat."

Chapman, a registered dietitian with more than 20 years of experience, has a name for this development.

She calls it "portion distortion."

"It's such a trend in the fast food industry, and it has become so much the norm that even more restaurants are following this," Chapman says.

"You go into Quik Trip, the Big Gulp used to be 32 ounces, and now you can get a 64 ounce. The (KU) students like the drinks. It filters everywhere, to every aspect in our culture. Serving sizes for candy bars, bags of chips and sodas are two to three times larger than they used to be."

That's not just speculation. It's a fact.

"Unquestionably. There's no doubt about it. They are probably a third larger than they were anywhere from 10 to 15 years ago. This is a well-documented phenomenon," Donnelly says.

Who's to blame

It's no secret to the food industry that there's a lot of money to be made by delivering belly-whopper portions to the American consumer.

Many restaurants are actually designed with that premise in mind.

"Our concept -- that's what we're based around -- is huge portions. We're a full-service, value concept, trying to give piles of fries, great big chicken-fried steaks, huge steaks, making sure customers get a lot for their money," says Daman Hoar, general manager of Montana Mike's Steakhouse, 1015 Iowa.

The signature of the restaurant, which is part of a regional chain, is hefty portions.

The menu features a 16-ounce chicken-fried steak that fills the plate, with a side salad and dinner roll, for $8.39.

"Our core steak that we build our menu around is a 22-ounce sirloin. It's $13.99. That's Mike's Mighty Meaty Meal," Hoar says.

The concept of serving plenty of food is clearly working. Business is brisk at the 4-year-old restaurant.

"We want to attract a crowd. We want people to know that we're going to fill you up for very affordable prices," he says.

And everyone in Lawrence has likely seen the TV commercials for Buffalo Bob's Smokehouse, 719 Mass., which boasts of tater curl fries "piled high to the sky."

That's part of the experience, says Bob Schumm, owner of Buffalo Bob's and Mass Street Deli, 941 Mass.

"People have come to expect that homemade french fry and a generous amount of them. If ever we fault that in any way, we hear about it right away," Schumm says.

"We even have people ask for additional amounts, and we give them to them."

But don't point the blame at fast-food restaurants for the trends in portion sizes and the increasing rate of obesity.

"The news media has been a big part of deceiving the American people. Every night when you watch TV, you hear them talk about ‘Fast food is bad for you,' ‘McDonald's is making everybody fat,'" Buck says.

"Truth be known, if you count calories in a lot of fast-food restaurants, and then you go to a bar and grill and see what people are ordering and count the calories, I think you'd be surprised."

Donnelly agrees.

"Restaurants keep getting slammed on this, but they actually have made attempts to have heart-healthy items on menus. I personally would not like to see the blame put on to the supply side. The consumers have bellied up eagerly, if you will, to demand these portion sizes," he says.

"Nobody's holding a gun to the American public's head and saying, ‘You must eat this food.' Most people know they should eat less. The truth is in between -- people need to do some things and industry needs to do some things."

Buck, for one, foresees a time when the tide will turn, and Americans will edge away from super-size eating.

"I think it'll change back," he says.

"Americans don't usually do things until they have to. When enough people get sugar diabetes and heart attacks, I think they'll wake up."