I don't think it's so much the open kitchen that is the culprit in the fattening up of Americans. I think it's the 6 dozen spits to eat. You've got the island, the breakfast nook, the dining room, the media room with popcorn, the basement bar, the outdoor kitchen and dining room, and the coffee table in front of the stupedfier, er, TV.

Good points Sophie Wheeler. Designing for healthy weight goes beyond the kitchen.

Also fascinating is this podcast:

'Slim by Design': Lose weight by changing your environment

Mushcreek, that hasn't been my experience. I weighed the most during a time when I was eating the healthiest foods. I was overeating and my life revolved around food (cooking special diets, feeding picky kids, etc.).

I think that part of it is that kids do not play outside. They do not walk to and from activities.

This totally ignores the very large difference between living in an apartment in a big city where there is lots to do outside your apartment and all of it is walking or biking distance (using subway/buses) vs. having a big house in the suburbs where there is nothing to do outside your home and anything you would do, you have to drive to.

In the former, you are much more active as natural part of your life. You walk every day, and you spend way less time sitting at home because it's too small to spend all day there without wanting to tear your hair out. Plus you live in PARIS, so why on earth would you sit at home all day?

In the latter, your home is big and quiet and spacious and very pleasant to spend lots of sedentary time in, plus there is nothing to DO in the suburbs, so why leave the house when you could sit at home watching TV and snacking out of boredom? Plus anytime you go anywhere, you get in a car to do it, which is also inactive.

If you're interested in actual research on things like this, Brian Wansink's book, "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think" is a great read :)

Recently when I came home from the store and was trying to shove another bag of chips into the pantry (unsuccessfully) I jokingly said, "Oh, must be time to remodel the kitchen!" (Our kitchen was done 5 years ago.) DH said, "Must be time to remodel our eating habits!"

Yes, the podcast above features Brian Wansink's work, based on actual research :)

The weight gain has a lot to do with all the processed food that people eat. My husband lost 25lbs before our wedding when I provided him food. He had plenty to eat and was never hungry.

Lunch was always 3 courses and dinner 4-5. Portion size is much smaller than what he gets at eating out but the flavored are fresh so he felt full.

The caveat is that it was all homemade or home cooked. We both have gain a lot of weight thru this remodel and I barely eat more than one meal a day. All the purchased food has tons of hidden sugar even in savory dishes.

About those "kitchen hacks"- for 1, 2, and 3, all I can say is "correlation is not causation."

6 is doesn't make sense to me. I would expect storing the leftovers would encourage people to serve themselves heaping first portions, rather than taking a modest amount knowing they could have a little more if they were still hungry.

Before I started remodeling, I guess my kitchen must have been French. It was closed off from everything.

You would never want to spend an extra second in there...not even to chat with the cook (and it got lonely). It was a hit-and-run kitchen. Many nights of the week, I made the quickest and easiest meals I could just to get out of there. With the removal of the "great wall", I spend a lot more time in the kitchen and have happily switched to more whole foods/plant-based menus. All because I actually enjoy spending time in my kitchen. And if that wall were still there, no matter what else I would have tried to do to make my kitchen more efficient, I still would have hated being in there and avoided spending anymore time in there than absolutely necessary. And my kitchen isn't done yet. It's sure not pretty yet. But I'm not isolated and in a closet.

So I'm skeptical.

beachem- I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly.

I have given birth to 4 kids and even with all the sleepless nights and exhaustion associated with a newborn, I always bounced right back to my normal weight within a few months.

We started this complete DIY remodel when my youngest was only 4 months old and still exclusively nursing.

At that point I was well on my way to getting back to my normal size, consistently losing weight by following the same habits I had always followed.

Queue the remodel and relying on processed crap to get my family fed every night and I stopped losing the pregnancy weight. Then I started gaining.

We are now (FINALLY) coming to the end of this remodel (2 years later) and I'm trying to break habits that were formed over the last two years.

Don't get me wrong. I'm so grateful to finally have my dream kitchen BUT, if I had known then what I know now, I would have shoved that plan down the nearest drain pipe to only be reawakened when my kids were fully grown or I had won the lottery and could afford to pay someone else to do all the work in a matter of weeks.;)

We rarely buy any processed food at all. My Number One weight loss program, though, is working construction. I left an office job to build the house, and I lost 40 lbs! Now I have to keep it off now that I'm almost done building the house.

Another sneaky little time bomb is that I need a lot less food than I used to, despite all of the physical labor. If I kept eating the same way I did a few years ago, I would gain weight. As we get older, we have to listen to our bodies, and eat what we need, not what we used to need. I also sleep less and less. I guess if I live long enough, I won't need to eat or sleep at all!

I find that as long as I keep processed/convenience foods out of the house, it is fairly easy to keep my weight down. Oh, and exercise is key at my age, regardless of diet. DD is vegetarian and DH is eating less and less heavy meals, so my cooking is much lighter and healthier than it used to be. But when there is junk in the house (or ice cream) I am the one who ends up partaking! I also agree that living in the sticks, I mean suburbs, there has to be a contrived walking plan since there is nowhere to walk to. I find when I travel to large cities, I lose weight from all the walking. Of course, we live outside of LA where everything is so spread out and no one walks anywhere.

It's what you actually eat and how much exercise you get - not open kitchens.

I haven't noticed any diet & weight differences b/w our old, fairly isolated Kitchen and our new(er) open kitchen - it's all about what you eat and what you do.

Oh, and pregnancy weight - that's also a function of how old you were when your child was born. My DS has six children - her first at 18 and sixth at 34. She told me there was a huge difference in how easy it was to lose the pregnancy weight b/w them. While in her 20s, it was easy - she didn't have to do much. In her 30s, it was much harder and took longer to lose it. (She's always been active - rides bikes, runs, etc.)

.

Let's not make an open plan the scapegoat!

I refuse to conflate healthy habits with ugly design. If it's true then I'll have to be plump, because my soul gets too skinny when surrounded by ugly, and I'd rather have a fat soul and body than a too skinny of both.

I used to live on 47th and the Ave (University Avenue) in Seattle and all kinds of restaurants were right outside the door. That's temptation!

Now, I live on a farm, a 25 minute drive from the nearest store, and I only eat what I buy at the store :)

Oh, to hell with you all.

Breakfast: Espresso & Reese's cups Location: On the front porch.

Lunch: Oh, yeah. I should eat something. Location: Anywhere I happen to be.

Dinner: Buy (ok, mostly sneak) it at the restaurant. Location: The break room.
On the day off, Grill a big fat steak and drink wine. OK, round it off with some mashed taties. Location: Porch, couch, whatever. Note to self: Move building crap off dining table.

Home after work: More wine, maybe more Reese's cups. No Reese's cups? Ok, settle for some cookie dough. Location: Flat on my back on the couch until I crawl my tired but to bed.

Exercise: You walk and smile for 10 hours at a time when you would love to strangle that awful 10% of the guests who could use a good, vigorous enema instead of Fried Chicken -- extra nakkins & summa dat hot sauce. You got any Brayed? You shud gimme dis free. I saw a fly on the wall. Ober dare. Walk away........

Who needs a kitchen, anyway? Isn't that what most people's coffee tables are for? Except those of you with those annoying and frightening little people creatures, of course.
Oh - BTW. I just moved my fridge to the mudroom. LOVE IT. Visually it's more space in which to do nothing but nuke milk for my espresso.