Researchers suggest alternative to banning junk food

Saturday, October 30, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: junk food, ban, health news

(NaturalNews) Federal and state governments have been toying with ideas about banning junk food in schools, but a recent study out of Cornell University has a better idea: move the junk food and put healthy food in its place. Not only does moving junk food to obscure locations discourage children from buying it, but placing healthy food in convenient and attractive locations -- often in place of junk food -- actually makes children want to eat it more.

"It's not nutrition until someone eats it," explained Chris Wallace, Food Service Director at the Corning, New York School District. "You need to have foods that kids will eat, or they won't eat -- or they'll eat worse." And part of getting students to eat better is simply presenting healthy food in attractive and more convenient ways.

Presented at the School Nutrition Association's New York conference, a series of studies on over 11,000 middle and high school students revealed that when healthy foods like apples are placed in attractive bowls in easily-accessible spots, many children opt for one rather than a dessert. And making changes like this costs virtually nothing, which means that food service directors everywhere can very easily implement them.

Among their findings, researchers found that:
-Reducing bowl sizes from 18 to 14 ounces cut average serving sizes of cereal by 24 percent.
-"Healthy express" checkout lines for children not purchasing desserts and chips doubled sales of healthy sandwiches.
-Putting ice cream in freezers with opaque rather than clear tops significantly reduced overall consumption of ice cream.
-Asking children if they wanted a salad increased sales by 30 percent.
-Simply moving chocolate milk behind plain milk led to students buying more plain milk.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-...