TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of default menus on food selection and consumption in a college dining hall simulation study
AU - Radnitz, Cynthia
AU - Loeb, Katharine L.
AU - Keller, Kathleen L.
AU - Boutelle, Kerri
AU - Schwartz, Marlene B.
AU - Todd, Lauren
AU - Marcus, Sue
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of food products from Clif Bar and Company, and the assistance of the following individuals: Abigail Altman, Alessandra Berardi, Emily Biggs, Ilana Brodzki, Jessica Dalrymple, Julie DiMatteo, Arielle Feld-man, Lisa Hail, Cassandra Hoy, Katie Huryk, Samantha Lowman, Chelsea Lynch, Amy Parter, Jenna Schlein, Corinne Sweeney, Erica Valerio, Bob Valenti and George Kuzma. Financial support: This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s (AFRI) programme on Childhood Obesity Prevention (programme code A2101; grant/award number 2013-69001-20416). NIFA had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article. Conflict of interest: None. Authorship: C.R. contributed to the original idea for the study, study design, grant editing, procedure implementation and ongoing supervision of students running the study, statistical analyses and writing the paper. K.L.L. was the primary author of the original grant and contributed to study formulation and design, procedure implementation and ongoing supervision of students running the study, statistical consultation and editing the paper. K.L.K. provided consultation on the nutritional make-up of the meals and portion sizes, grant editing, nutritional analyses and editing the paper. K.B. edited the original grant, contributed to the study design and implementation, and edited the final manuscript. M.B.S. edited the original grant, contributed to the study design and implementation, and contributed to the writing and editing of the final manuscript. L.T. ran participants, trained research assistants, organized and did data entry, did the nutritional analyses and contributed to the writing of the paper. S.M. contributed to the study design and choice of statistical analyses. Ethics of human subject participation: This study was conducted according to the guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki and all procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Fairleigh Dickinson University Institutional Review Board. Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects.
PY - 2018/5/1
Y1 - 2018/5/1
N2 - Objective To test an obesity prevention strategy derived from behavioural economics (optimal defaults plus delay), focused on changing the college dining hall service method.Design After a uniform pre-load, participants attended an experimental lunch in groups randomized to one of three conditions: a nutrient-dense, lower-fat/energy lunch as an optimal default (OD); a less-nutrient-dense, higher-fat/energy lunch as a suboptimal default (SD); or a free array (FA) lunch. In the OD condition, students were presented a menu depicting healthier vegetarian and omnivore foods as default, with opt-out alternatives (SD menu) available on request with a 15 min wait. In the SD condition, the same menu format was used with the positioning of food items switched. In the FA condition, all choices were presented in uniform fonts and were available immediately.Setting Private rooms designed to provide a small version of a college dining hall, on two campuses of a Northeastern US university.Subjects First-year college students (n 129).Results There was a significant main effect for condition on percentage of optimal choices selected, with 94 % of food choices in the OD condition optimal, 47 % in the FA condition optimal and none in the SD condition optimal. Similarly, energy intake for those in the SD condition significantly exceeded that in the FA condition, which exceeded that in the OD condition.Conclusions Presenting menu items as optimal defaults with a delay had a significant impact on choice and consumption, suggesting that further research into its long-term applicability is warranted.
AB - Objective To test an obesity prevention strategy derived from behavioural economics (optimal defaults plus delay), focused on changing the college dining hall service method.Design After a uniform pre-load, participants attended an experimental lunch in groups randomized to one of three conditions: a nutrient-dense, lower-fat/energy lunch as an optimal default (OD); a less-nutrient-dense, higher-fat/energy lunch as a suboptimal default (SD); or a free array (FA) lunch. In the OD condition, students were presented a menu depicting healthier vegetarian and omnivore foods as default, with opt-out alternatives (SD menu) available on request with a 15 min wait. In the SD condition, the same menu format was used with the positioning of food items switched. In the FA condition, all choices were presented in uniform fonts and were available immediately.Setting Private rooms designed to provide a small version of a college dining hall, on two campuses of a Northeastern US university.Subjects First-year college students (n 129).Results There was a significant main effect for condition on percentage of optimal choices selected, with 94 % of food choices in the OD condition optimal, 47 % in the FA condition optimal and none in the SD condition optimal. Similarly, energy intake for those in the SD condition significantly exceeded that in the FA condition, which exceeded that in the OD condition.Conclusions Presenting menu items as optimal defaults with a delay had a significant impact on choice and consumption, suggesting that further research into its long-term applicability is warranted.
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U2 - 10.1017/S1368980017004220
DO - 10.1017/S1368980017004220
M3 - Article
C2 - 29409556
AN - SCOPUS:85045203254
VL - 21
SP - 1359
EP - 1369
JO - Public Health Nutrition
JF - Public Health Nutrition
SN - 1368-9800
IS - 7
ER -