Background: It is often assumed that children avoid fruit in school cafeterias because of higher relative prices and a preference for other foods. Laddering interviews reveal that younger children with small mouths or braces find whole fresh fruit difficult to eat. Older girls avoid it because...

Rational choice theory commonly assumes that the presence of unselected choices cannot impact which among the remaining choices is selected – often referred to as independence of irrelevant alternatives. We show that such seemingly irrelevant alternatives influence choice in a school lunch...

Measuring food waste is essential to determine the impact of school interventions on what children eat. There are multiple methods used for measuring food waste, yet it is unclear which method is most appropriate in large-scale interventions with restricted resources. This study examines which...

Approximately 31 million children enroll in the National School Lunch Program and nearly 1/3 of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are considered obese. What if the school food environment made healthy food choices easier for children? One overlooked scalable alternative involves students...

Background: Concession stands at high school events are exempt from the US Department of Agriculture regulations for school foods. Concessions are generally stocked with unhealthy foods since healthy foods are believed to have lower sales and profit margins. Methods: Concession stand sales for...

Nearly 1/3 of children between ages 6 and 19 are considered obese and their choosing of less healthy foods in school lunchrooms may contribute. To encourage students to select healthier foods, recent research has focused on how environmental changes and behavioral economics can guide children to...

Currently, 68.3% of the milk available in schools is flavored, with chocolate being the most popular (61.6% of all milk). If chocolate milk is removed from a school cafeteria, what will happen to overall milk selection and consumption? Methods: In a before-after study in 11 Oregon elementary...

Background: Concession stands at high school events are exempt from USDA regulations. They generally sell unhealthy foods and fear change will affect profits. Methods: Concession stand sales for two seasons of high school football games in Muscatine, Iowa were compared. In between seasons, two...

Objective: Each day, tens of millions of restaurant goers, conference attendees, college students, military personnel, and school children serve themselves at buffets – many being all-you-can-eat buffets. Knowing how the food order at a buffet triggers what a person selects could be useful in...

Objective: How do the holidays – and the possible New Year's resolutions that follow – influence a household's purchase patterns of healthier foods versus less healthy foods? This has important implications for both holiday food shopping and post-holiday shopping. Methods: 207 households...