{"id":27893,"date":"2011-01-10T08:18:13","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T13:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=27893"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:38:50","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:38:50","slug":"can-lighting-impact-the-food-choices-of-finicky-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/01\/can-lighting-impact-the-food-choices-of-finicky-teens\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Lighting Impact the Food Choices of Finicky Teens?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Middle<\/a>
A student in a middle school cafeteria. Stock photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019ve ever shopped at a high-end gourmet grocery store, you may have noticed the differences in lighting \u2013 dimly lit in some sections, while special lights are focused on products they want you to buy. The food industry has been doing this kind of subtle marketing for years. But what if this same principle was used in a school cafeteria?<\/p>\n

\u201cI started wondering a few years ago how I could use common marketing tools to improve public health,\u201d says David Glenn, a doctoral student at the UConn School of Medicine who previously worked as a marketing researcher for food companies. \u201cFor instance, how can we use attractive lighting to make vegetables look more appetizing so that kids are more likely to choose them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Glenn, a father of two adolescents, noticed that their middle school\u2019s cafeteria food line was constructed of stainless steel and dimly lit. It was designed to be easy to clean, not to make the food more appealing.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompare that to a Whole Foods, where it reminds you of a restaurant when you walk in, full of appetizing foods and smells,\u201d says Glenn. \u201cMiddle schools aren\u2019t typically like that, they\u2019re antiseptic. But if we could do something subtle such as enhance the lighting on certain foods, maybe we could nudge the students to make healthier choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glenn knows how effective some of these simple strategies can be. Food stores have found that if you increase the size of a shopping cart by 20 percent, the consumer will likely buy 15 percent more. Tantalizing smells and special lighting can also prompt customers to purchase more food.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many things that retailers and food manufacturers know, that researchers in academia and public health don\u2019t know,\u201d says Ann Ferris, director of the Center for Public Health and Health Policy at the UConn Health Center. \u201cBehavioral economics is now a popular area of research, but it\u2019s basically marketing and it\u2019s been going on for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But food and marketing companies aren\u2019t known to write journal articles or publish academic papers. That\u2019s why Glenn and Ferris have embarked on this study to determine whether preferential lighting can influence food choice \u2013 even among finicky adolescents \u2013 and make an impact on the growing number of overweight kids. They\u2019ve been awarded a $30,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s economic research service to conduct the pilot study.<\/p>\n

Ferris says one reason they chose to focus on lighting is because it would be relatively simple and inexpensive for schools to implement. In most instances, the lighting fixtures are already in place, so the school would just need to change the light bulbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the cost of special lighting that makes food look more appetizing is about the same as standard lighting, then why can\u2019t we shine the specialized light on the salads, on the hot vegetables, on the fruit cups?\u201d asks Glenn.<\/p>\n

The four-month-long study will involve 20 schools that are similar in population and socioeconomic status. Half will receive the new lighting, and half will stay the same. Every week, the researchers will track the sales of different foods \u2013 healthful and not so healthful \u2013 and see what the effects are, based on actual behavior.<\/p>\n

Glenn says the students and cafeteria workers won\u2019t know they are part of a study: \u201cWe won\u2019t need to interview anyone. We\u2019ll just look to see what happens behaviorally. At the end of the study, we\u2019ll have real data. We\u2019ll know if X percent of the time, we moved more salads with the specialized lighting versus the standard lighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Middle schools were chosen for the lighting study because the students are making real food choices for the first time. In the elementary schools, there\u2019s often a cafeteria worker dishing out the food; and by the time students reach high school, they may have already formed their food habits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really wanted to aim at the early adolescents, to see if we could influence their choices toward more healthful foods,\u201d explains Glenn. \u201cWe don\u2019t have anything against the food that is already there, the pizza and the cheeseburgers, we\u2019re just trying to shine a clearer light on more healthful choices.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study focuses on whether special lighting can influence adolescents to choose healthy foods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-27893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 19:23:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27893"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27901,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27893\/revisions\/27901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27893"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=27893"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=27893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}