Behavioral Design Strategies Improve Healthy Food Sales in a Military Cafeteria

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Health Promot
• Personal Author:
  Kimmons, Joel ; Nugent, Nadine Budd ; Harris, Diane ; Lee, Seung Hee ; Kompaniyets, Lyudmyla ; Onufrak, Stephen
• Description:
  Purpose:
  
  This study examined the use of behavioral design strategies to improve healthier food sales.
  
  Design:
  
  A quasi-experimental, one-group, repeated measures design examined changes in food sales following behavioral design adjustments.
  
  Setting:
  
  United States military base hospital dining facility.
  
  Subjects:
  
  U.S. military service members, retirees, and civilian employees.
  
  Intervention:
  
  Behavioral design changes included placement, layout, messaging, default healthy bundling, a stoplight rating system, strategic positioning of healthy items on menu boards, and an increase in healthier snacks.
  
  Measures:
  
  Food sales were assessed by point-of-sales data.
  
  Analysis:
  
  T-tests examined total sales of each food adjusted weekly between baseline and intervention and intervention and post-intervention. 16 food items targeted by the intervention were examined. Weekly food sales were calculated for the 18-week baseline, 18-week intervention, and 9-week post-intervention. Further, analysis estimated negative binomial models for food item sales.
  
  Results:
  
  The hospital dining facility served 600 to 900 meals per day. Weekly foods sales decreased during the intervention for desserts, cooked starches, hummus, and yogurt (P ≤ 0.01). Sales increased during the intervention for fruit cups, cooked vegetables, vegetable and turkey burgers, grilled chicken, packaged salads, French fries, hamburgers, and hot dogs (P ≤ 0.02).
  
  Conclusion:
  
  This study demonstrates that a mixture of behavioral design strategies can be operationalized with reasonable fidelity and can lead to increases in the sales of some healthy foods in military worksites.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Commerce Diet, Healthy Female Food Services Health Behavior Health Promotion Humans Male Military Facilities Military Personnel United States

  More +
• Keywords:
  Behavioral Design Diet Federal Government Food Service Guidelines Health Behavior Military Facilities Military Personnel Nutrition
• Source:
  Am J Health Promot. 39(2):234-243
• Pubmed ID:
  39420551
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC11663086
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  39
• Issue:
  2
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3f519e90796416c53c21e7ea01b1736cf705d5ff3d64d807d131b48bf737d71af9d0b60e51e6f522375588474c0e5726bc5d31f6150259a704440a155b9b9d99
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/175236/cdc_175236_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 131.64 KB ]