Presence of healthier food items can influence children to make more healthy choices, a new study says.
Researchers from Cornell's Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (BEN) examined the factors deciding children's food choices, especially school meals. They found the mere presence of healthy food like a whole fruit, included in the meal making children to go for more healthy choices, on the other hand applesauce and fruit cocktail leading them to go after unhealthy food items like cookies and ice cream bars.
"The impacts of offering a single vegetable or fruit may have significant implications for the whole meal," study co-author Andrew Hanks, a postdoctoral researcher for the BEN Center, said in a news release.
"Even though these students did not take a fruit or vegetable, either in a meal or as a separate item, their choices of the less healthy a la carte items were still affected by the presence of fruits and vegetables," David Just, study co-author and BEN Center co-director, added.
After examining school lunch purchase data from two schools in New York, the investigators found sweet nature of fruit cocktail including in the lunch program making children search for more sugar containing food items and at the same time green beans and bananas drawing them towards healthful foods. The occurrence termed by the authors as "priming effect" revolves around the principle that "relatively more healthful items trigger healthier choices and vice versa."
Earlier studies conducted by the investigators had also showed visibility, convenience and accessibility influencing behavior.
"Trigger foods may fly under the radar, influencing choice without overtly drawing the attention of the decision maker, but they can have substantial effects on the nutritional content of the food selected," Brian Wansink, another co-author of the study, said.
The behavior pattern should be adopted to make children eat healthy food, researchers said.
"This information can be most useful for food service directors as they strive to identify which options will help students make the most healthful choices," Just concluded.
The findings of the study have been published in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Review.
