Designing online grocery stores to support healthy eating for weight loss.

OBJECTIVES: The current study aimed to identify features to include in online grocery stores to support healthful food purchasing by those striving to lose weight. DESIGN: A Value Proposition Design approach was used to gain shopper insights, devise potential online grocery store features and obtain feedback on these features. SETTING: Telephone interviews were conducted to gain insight into shoppers' needs and perceptions. Results were used by the research team to identify potential online grocery shopping features that may support healthful purchase decisions, and interviews were conducted with a different sample of shoppers to gather feedback on features. PARTICIPANTS: Insight (n 25) and feedback (n 25) interviews were conducted with convenience samples of adults trying to lose weight. RESULTS: Participants were primarily female, white, college educated and with obesity or overweight. Online grocery features devised by the research team based on findings from the insight interviews included (1) shopping cart nutrition rating tool; (2) healthy meal planning tool; (3) interactive healthy eating inspiration aisle and (4) healthy shopping preference settings option. Findings from the feedback interviews indicated that the healthy meal planning tool, healthy shopping preference settings option and shopping cart nutrition rating tool features were positively rated by most participants. CONCLUSIONS: There are multiple features grocers should consider including in their online stores to attract and support customers striving to eat healthy for weight loss.

Variety Salience and Enjoyment of Repetitiously Consumed Foods: a Field Experiment.

BACKGROUND: The formation of healthy eating habits is supported by repeatedly eating specific foods, but repetition can also reduce enjoyment of those foods. Making the variety in one's diet salient increases enjoyment of repetitiously consumed foods in a lab setting. Therefore, in a longitudinal field experiment, we tested a brief intervention to remind participants of the variety in their diet. We hypothesized that increasing salience of dietary variety would prevent declines in enjoyment of the food and increase the likelihood that participants would be willing to eat the food again later. METHOD: Participants (n = 139) ate a granola bar each day for 2 weeks. Before eating it, participants randomly assigned to the treatment condition recalled other recently consumed foods (to increase salience of dietary variety). Control subjects recalled variety in an unrelated domain (music). Participants reported their enjoyment of the granola bar after they ate it each day, and in a lab session after the study ended, the number of granola bars they took from a selection of snacks was counted. RESULTS: Self-reported feelings of enjoyment declined steadily, and contrary to our first hypothesis, increasing salience of dietary variety did not prevent this decline. Increasing salience of dietary variety did increase the likelihood that participants would choose to take the same kind of granola bar 2 weeks later. CONCLUSION: Brief exercises that make variety in one's diet more salient may not prevent reductions in enjoyment of a repetitiously consumed food, but may still support continued consumption of the food.

The Properties and Antecedents of Hedonic Decline.

We review the phenomenon of hedonic decline, whereby repeated exposure to a stimulus typically reduces the hedonic response (e.g., enjoyment). We first discuss the typical trajectory of hedonic decline and the common research paradigms used to study it. We next discuss the most popular theories regarding general mechanisms widely believed to underlie hedonic decline. We then propose a taxonomy to organize these various general theories and to incorporate more recent work on top-down, self-reflective theories. This taxonomy identifies three general classes of antecedents to hedonic decline: physiological feedback, perceptual changes, and self-reflection. For each class, we review the supporting evidence for specifically identified antecedents and recent developments on how each antecedent influences hedonic decline. Our review focuses especially on more recent work in the growing area of self-reflection.

An in-home intervention of parent-implemented strategies to increase child vegetable intake: results from a non-randomized cluster-allocated community trial.

BACKGROUND: Less than 2% of children in the U.S., ages 9-13, meet the minimum dietary recommendations for vegetable intake. The home setting provides potential opportunities to promote dietary behavior change among children, yet limited trials exist with child vegetable intake as a primary outcome. Strategies to increase vegetable intake grounded in behavioral economics are no/low cost and may be easily implemented in the home by parents. METHODS: This non-randomized, controlled study tested whether an intervention of parent-led strategies informed by behavioral economics and implemented within a series of 6 weekly parent-child vegetable cooking skills classes, improved dietary outcomes of a diverse sample of low-income children (ages 9-12) more than the vegetable cooking skills classes alone. The primary outcomes were total vegetable intake, dietary quality (HEI scores), total energy intake, vegetable liking, variety of vegetables tried, child BMI-z score, and home availability of vegetables. Outcome measures were collected at baseline, immediate post-treatment, 6 and 12 months follow-up. Mixed model regression analyses with fixed independent effects (treatment condition, time point and treatment condition x time interaction) were used to compare outcomes between treatment conditions. RESULTS: A total of 103 parent/child pairs (intervention = 49, control = 54) were enrolled and 91 (intervention = 44, control = 47) completed the weekly cooking skills program. The intervention did not improve child total vegetable intake. Intervention children increased dark green vegetable intake from immediate post-treatment to 12 months. The number of vegetables children tried increased and mean vegetable liking decreased over time for both control and intervention children. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study suggest that the strategies and the manner in which they were implemented may not be effective in low-income populations. The burden of implementing a number of strategies with potentially higher food costs may have constrained the ability of families in the current study to use the strategies as intended. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This trial has been retrospectively registered at : # NCT03641521 on August 21, 2018.

Examining the feasibility of implementing behavioural economics strategies that encourage home dinner vegetable intake among low-income children.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the feasibility of implementing nine behavioural economics-informed strategies, or 'nudges', that aimed to encourage home dinner vegetable intake among low-income children. DESIGN: Caregivers were assigned six of nine strategies and implemented one new strategy per week (i.e. 6 weeks) during three dinner meals. Caregivers recorded child dinner vegetable intake on the nights of strategy implementation and rated the level of difficulty for assigned strategies. Baseline data on home vegetable availability and child vegetable liking were collected to assess overall strategy feasibility. SETTING: Participants' homes in a large Midwestern metropolitan area, USA. SUBJECTS: Low-income caregiver/child (aged 9-12 years) dyads (n 39). RESULTS: Pairwise comparisons showed that child dinner vegetable intake for the strategy 'Serve at least two vegetables with dinner meals' was greater than intake for each of two other strategies: 'Pair vegetables with other foods the child likes' and 'Eat dinner together with an adult(s) modelling vegetable consumption'. Overall, caregivers' mean rating of difficulty for implementing strategies was 2·6 (1='not difficult', 10='very difficult'). Households had a mean of ten different types of vegetables available. Children reported a rating ≥5 for seventeen types of vegetable on a labelled hedonic scale (1='hate it', 5-6='it's okay', 10='like it a lot'). CONCLUSIONS: Behavioural economics-informed strategies are feasible to implement during dinner meals, with some strategies differing by how much they influence vegetable intake among low-income children in the home.

Increasing portion sizes of fruits and vegetables in an elementary school lunch program can increase fruit and vegetable consumption.

Increasing portion size can increase children's consumption of food. The goal of this study was to determine whether increasing the portion sizes of fruits and vegetables in an elementary school cafeteria environment would increase children's consumption of them. We measured each child's consumption of the fruit and vegetables served in a cafeteria line on a control day (normal cafeteria procedures) and on two intervention days. When we increased the portion size of 3 of the 4 fruits and vegetables by about 50%, children who took those foods increased their consumption of them. Although this was an effective strategy for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among students who took those foods, many children chose not to take any fruits or vegetables. Further efforts are needed to increase children's selection and consumption of fruits and vegetables in an environment of competing foods of higher palatability.

Physical order produces healthy choices, generosity, and conventionality, whereas disorder produces creativity.

Order and disorder are prevalent in both nature and culture, which suggests that each environ confers advantages for different outcomes. Three experiments tested the novel hypotheses that orderly environments lead people toward tradition and convention, whereas disorderly environments encourage breaking with tradition and convention-and that both settings can alter preferences, choice, and behavior. Experiment 1 showed that relative to participants in a disorderly room, participants in an orderly room chose healthier snacks and donated more money. Experiment 2 showed that participants in a disorderly room were more creative than participants in an orderly room. Experiment 3 showed a predicted crossover effect: Participants in an orderly room preferred an option labeled as classic, but those in a disorderly room preferred an option labeled as new. Whereas prior research on physical settings has shown that orderly settings encourage better behavior than disorderly ones, the current research tells a nuanced story of how different environments suit different outcomes.

In control of variety. High self-control reduces the effect of variety on food consumption.

The presence of variety increases the quantity of food a person wants and consumes. A recent review of past literature (Remick, Polivy, & Pliner, 2009) concludes that although external factors influence this effect of variety, internal factors do not seem to affect it. We identify general self-control as an internal factor that moderates the effects of variety in food. A series of three studies demonstrates that lower trait self-control makes one more susceptible to the variety effect, showing both greater increases in choice regarding the quantity of consumption and desire for more food in the presence of variety. Compared to those with low self-control, people with high self-control experience reduced enjoyment for a variety of foods following consumption of one food. This increased satiation would serve to diminish the variety effect and facilitate positive health outcomes over time.

How Online Grocery Stores Support Consumer Nutrition Information Needs.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the availability of nutrition-related information and features on leading online grocery store Web sites. METHODS: Twelve US grocery Web sites were assessed to determine (1) if Nutrition Facts panel or ingredient statements were available for 26 food items; and (2) if options to filter or sort search results by nutrition-related food attributes were available. RESULTS: Nutrition Facts panel and ingredient statement information were available for most foods for which this information is required on product packaging (85% of foods). Most stores offered the ability to filter food search results by a nutrition-related food attribute. The ability to sort search results by a nutrition attribute was not an option at any of the stores. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Online grocery stores include a variety of nutrition-related features. However, the Nutrition Facts panel and ingredient statement information are not universally available for foods for which this information is required on product packaging.

Collective satiation: How coexperience accelerates a decline in hedonic judgments.

Individuals often mutually experience a stimulus with a relationship partner or social group (e.g., snacking with friends). Yet, little is currently understood about how a sense of coexperiencing affects hedonic judgments of experiences that unfold over time. Research on the shared attention state has suggested that hedonic judgments are intensified when individuals coexperience a stimulus (vs. experiencing it alone), and other related work has found that the social environment influences hedonic judgments in shared (vs. solo) experiences. Although this past work has focused on judgments of single instances of a stimulus, the present work examines how coexperience affects hedonic judgments of stimuli over time. This work documents the 'collective satiation effect' wherein satiation-a diminished enjoyment of pleasant stimuli with repeated experience-is accelerated by a sense of coexperiencing the stimulus with others. We propose that this happens because shared attention makes the repetitive nature of the experience more salient, by promoting and incorporating thoughts of others also repeatedly having the same shared experience. Five studies document the collective satiation effect, support the proposed mechanism, and show moderators of the effect. Taken together, this research contributes to an understanding of how the social environment influences the experience of hedonic stimuli, which has broad implications for the value individuals place on the time that they spend with others. (PsycINFO Database Record

Impacts of a Vegetable Cooking Skills Program Among Low-Income Parents and Children.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of a vegetable-focused cooking skills and nutrition program on parent and child psychosocial measures, vegetable liking, variety, and home availability. DESIGN: Baseline and postcourse surveys collected 1-week after the course. SETTING: Low-income communities in Minneapolis-St Paul. PARTICIPANTS: Parent-child dyads (n = 89; one third each Hispanic, African American, and white) with complete pre-post course data; flyer and e-mail recruitment. INTERVENTION(S): Six 2-hour-weekly sessions including demonstration, food preparation, nutrition education lessons, and a meal. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Parental cooking confidence and barriers, food preparation/resource management, child self-efficacy and cooking attitudes, vegetable liking, vegetable variety, and vegetable home availability. ANALYSIS: Pre-post changes analyzed with paired t test or Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Results were significant at P < .05. RESULTS: Increased parental cooking confidence (4.0 to 4.4/5.0), healthy food preparation (3.6 to 3.9/5.0), child self-efficacy (14.8 to 12.4; lower score = greater self-efficacy), vegetable variety (30 to 32/37 for parent, 22 to 24/37 for child), and home vegetable availability (16 to 18/35) (all P < .05). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: A short-term evaluation of a vegetable-focused cooking and nutrition program for parents and children showed improvements in psychosocial factors, variety, and home availability.

The ability to choose can increase satiation.

The ability to choose should let people create more enjoyable experiences. However, in a set of 5 studies, people who chose repeatedly during ongoing consumption exhibited a greater drop in enjoyment compared with those who received a series of random selections from the same set of liked stimuli. Process evidence indicated that choosing increased satiation because it triggered overall reflections on the repetitive nature of the ongoing consumption experience. Moderating evidence also supported our theoretical account as differences in satiation disappeared when nonchoosers were explicitly cued to think about repetition in the general sense, or when choosers made all of their choices before the onset of repeated consumption. Additional measures and analyses further established that choice set size, the difficulty of choosing, and other alternative accounts could not fully explain the pattern of effects. The paper closes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for understanding the causes of satiation, the consequences of choosing, and improving individuals' experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record

Serving first in isolation increases vegetable intake among elementary schoolchildren.

Many people want to eat healthier, but they often fail in these attempts. We report two field studies in an elementary school cafeteria that each demonstrate children eat more of a vegetable (carrots, broccoli) when we provide it first in isolation versus alongside other more preferred foods. We propose this healthy first approach succeeds by triggering one's inherent motivation to eat a single food placed in front of them, and works even though they have prior knowledge of the full menu available and no real time constraints. Consistent with this theory, and counter to simple contrast effects, an additional lab study found that presenting a food first in isolation had the unique ability to increase intake whether the food was healthy (carrots) or less healthy (M&M's). Our findings demonstrate the effectiveness of this simple intervention in promoting healthier eating, which should interest consumers, food marketers, health professionals, and policy makers.

Testing the effectiveness of in-home behavioral economics strategies to increase vegetable intake, liking, and variety among children residing in households that receive food assistance.

OBJECTIVE: To test the effectiveness of behavioral economics strategies for increasing vegetable intake, variety, and liking among children residing in homes receiving food assistance. DESIGN: A randomized controlled trial with data collected at baseline, once weekly for 6 weeks, and at study conclusion. SETTING: Family homes. PARTICIPANTS: Families with a child (9-12 years) will be recruited through community organizations and randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 36) or control (n = 10) group. INTERVENTION: The intervention group will incorporate a new behavioral economics strategy during home dinner meal occasions each week for 6 weeks. Strategies are simple and low-cost. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): The primary dependent variable will be child's dinner meal vegetable consumption based on weekly reports by caregivers. Fixed independent variables will include the strategy and week of strategy implementation. Secondary dependent variables will include vegetable liking and variety of vegetables consumed based on data collected at baseline and study conclusion. ANALYSIS: Mean vegetable intake for each strategy across families will be compared using a mixed-model analysis of variance with a random effect for child. In additionally, overall mean changes in vegetable consumption, variety, and liking will be compared between intervention and control groups.

The myth of comfort food.

OBJECTIVE: People seek out their own idiosyncratic comfort foods when in negative moods, and they believe that these foods rapidly improve their mood. The purpose of these studies is to investigate whether comfort foods actually provide psychological benefits, and if so, whether they improve mood better than comparison foods or no food. METHODS: Participants first completed an online questionnaire to indicate their comfort foods and a variety of comparison foods. During two lab sessions a week apart from each other (and at least a week after the online questionnaire, counterbalanced in order), participants watched films that induced negative affect. In one session, participants were then served their comfort food. In the other, participants were served an equally liked noncomfort food (Study 1), a neutral food (Study 2), or no food (Studies 3 and 4). Short-term mood changes were measured so that we could seek out psychological effects of these foods, rather than biochemical effects on mood from particular food components (e.g., sugars or vitamins). RESULTS: Comfort foods led to significant improvements in mood, but no more than other foods or no food. CONCLUSIONS: Although people believe that comfort foods provide them with mood benefits, comfort foods do not provide comfort beyond that of other foods (or no food). These results are likely not due to a floor effect because participants' moods did not return to baseline levels. Individuals may be giving comfort food "credit" for mood effects that would have occurred even in the absence of the comfort food.

The subjective sense of feeling satiated.

The traditional view of satiation is that repeated consumption produces an unavoidable decline in liking according to the quantity and recency of consumption. We challenge this deterministic view by showing that satiation is instead partially constructed in the moment based on contextual cues. More specifically, while satiation is a function of the actual amount consumed, it also depends on the subjective sense of how much one has recently consumed. We demonstrate the influence of this subjective sense of satiation and show that it is driven by metacognitive cues such as the ease of retrieval of past experiences (Experiments 1 and 2) and can also be directly manipulated by providing a normative standard for consumption quantity (Experiment 3). Our research demonstrates that satiety is not driven solely by the amount and timing of past consumption, thereby establishing the role of higher order metacognitive inferences in satiation and providing insight into how they underlie the construction of satiation.

Unpacking unpacking: greater detail can reduce perceived likelihood.

Past research suggests that a categorical event is perceived to be more likely if its subcases are explicitly delineated or "unpacked." In 6 studies, we find that unpacking can often make an event seem less likely, especially when the details being unpacked are already highly accessible. Process evidence shows that the provision of greater detail accompanying unpacking reduces the simplicity of an event and that this dysfluency is used as a negative cue for likelihood. This work establishes processing fluency as a mechanism that opposes the other effects of unpacking, such as enhanced accessibility.