The City Critic on School Lunches
A step in the right direction, even before the rest of the country had put on their sneakers. Thanks to NYC for having their finger on the pulse of what needs to be done to help kids learn and keep healthy appetites.
In January 2010, the school lunch manager instituted Dr. Wansink's plan and witnessed a surprising 4-fold increase in fruit sales by March! Even better news came from parents who reported their children talking about the fruit in the cafeteria. Did we just enter the twilight zone?
No, snap out of it, it actually happened. These cheap and simple changes are based on Wansink's theory of behavioral engineering. To avoid resistance, he believes (and, as far as I'm concerned, has proven) that making a consumer feel as though they have chosen the behavior/product themselves is crucial to curbing consumer behavior to the outcome you want. Big Brother anyone? At least he's using his powers for good and not evil. The author of best-selling book Mindless Eating believes people make about 250 eating decisions a day and that most of those are "'mindless' decisions triggered by his or her environment." Therefore, changing the environment can encourage people to change their eating behavior and this success of this centers on 4 concepts: 1) placement (e.g. broccoli at the beginning of the line, 2) marketing/advertisement (e.g. attractive packaging of veggie snacks or verbally offering salad to children), 3) convenience (e.g. putting chocolate milk behind the plain milk), and 4) visual cues (e.g. keeping ice cream in opaque freezers.
Now housed in the just 1-year-old Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs, the prospects of healthy changes in the lunchroom are looking good thanks to the team led by Prof. Brian Wansink.
The scoop: Someone who's also making waves in New York cafeterias...Plattsburgh, New York that is...is Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University. An expert in human eating behavior, an application of the studies of consumer behavior and behavioral economics, his strategy for getting kids to eat more fresh fruit is to "trick" them. Basically, to make the consumer (the child) choose the desired behavior (taking fresh fruit and vegetables) by strategically placing the product (fruits & veggies) in locations (by the cash register) or in attractive packaging that will end in seamless incorporation of the product into the consumer's cart. Has it worked? Yes, it most definitely has (phew!)
In January 2010, the school lunch manager instituted Dr. Wansink's plan and witnessed a surprising 4-fold increase in fruit sales by March! Even better news came from parents who reported their children talking about the fruit in the cafeteria. Did we just enter the twilight zone?
No, snap out of it, it actually happened. These cheap and simple changes are based on Wansink's theory of behavioral engineering. To avoid resistance, he believes (and, as far as I'm concerned, has proven) that making a consumer feel as though they have chosen the behavior/product themselves is crucial to curbing consumer behavior to the outcome you want. Big Brother anyone? At least he's using his powers for good and not evil. The author of best-selling book Mindless Eating believes people make about 250 eating decisions a day and that most of those are "'mindless' decisions triggered by his or her environment." Therefore, changing the environment can encourage people to change their eating behavior and this success of this centers on 4 concepts: 1) placement (e.g. broccoli at the beginning of the line, 2) marketing/advertisement (e.g. attractive packaging of veggie snacks or verbally offering salad to children), 3) convenience (e.g. putting chocolate milk behind the plain milk), and 4) visual cues (e.g. keeping ice cream in opaque freezers.
Now housed in the just 1-year-old Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs, the prospects of healthy changes in the lunchroom are looking good thanks to the team led by Prof. Brian Wansink.
So the next time you buy strawberries because you want them, think again, you might have just been hoodwinked!
The original article entitled "Meal Plan" that discusses Prof. Wansink's work was written by Edward Lewine and can be found in the March 2011 Hemispheres Inflight Magazine by Continental Airlines.
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