Can branding improve school lunches?

Branding healthier foods in school cafeterias can improve children's nutrition

2012-08-29

(Press-News.org) A popular marketing ploy with junk foods and other indulgent table fare can be an equally effective tool for promoting healthier eating in school cafeterias.

"Nutritionists and school lunch planners can turn the tables on children's poor eating habits by adopting the same 'branding' tactic used by junk food marketers," said Brian Wansink, an expert on the subtle cues that affect people's eating habits and professor of marketing at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University.

Food marketers have associated particular foods with mascots, super heroes and other characters for decades. Such marketing tactics have been effective for promoting everything from candies to sugary breakfast cereals, but they can also be used to induce youngsters and adolescents to choose healthier foods, according to research published in the journal, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Wansink is lead author of the study, "Can Branding Improve School Lunches?" His co-authors are David R. Just, associate professor of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell; and Collin R. Payne, professor of Marketing at New Mexico State University.

"Branding has tremendous potential to promote healthier eating. We tend to associate mascots and characters with junk food, but they can also be used to build excitement around healthy foods. This is a powerful lesson for fast food companies, food activists and people involved in school food service," Wansink said.

The researchers offered children a choice between cookies and apples. In some cases, generic apples and cookies were offered; in other cases, the apples were 'branded' with stickers of "Elmo," a popular cartoon character. Wansink, Just and Payne discovered that placing stickers of popular children's cartoon characters on apples encouraged more children to choose the fruits over sweets.

INFORMATION:

For more information about Cornell research on eating habits and food marketing, visit: http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

The beat goes in the brain

2012-08-29

URBANA, Ill. — Like a melody that keeps playing in your head even after the music stops, researchers at the University of Illinois's Beckman Institute have shown that the beat goes on when it comes to the human visual system. In an experiment designed to test their theory about a brain mechanism involved in visual processing, the researchers used periodic visual stimuli and electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings and found, one, that they could precisely time the brain's natural oscillations to future repetitions of the event, and, two, that the effect occurred even after ...

Not all lung cancer patients who could benefit from crizotinib are identified by FDA-approved test

2012-08-29

Break apart a couple worm-like chromosomes and they may reconnect with mismatched tips and tails – such is the case of the EML4-ALK fusion gene that creates 2-7 percent of lung cancers. Almost exactly a year ago, the FDA approved the drug crizotinib to treat these ALK+ lung cancer patients, who were likely never smokers. Informed doctors use the test called a FISH assay to check for the EML4-ALK fusion gene, and then if the test is positive, ALK+ patients benefit greatly from crizotinib. A recent University of Colorado Cancer Center case study published in the Journal ...

Metabolism in the brain fluctuates with circadian rhythm

2012-08-29

CHAMPAIGN, lll. — The rhythm of life is driven by the cycles of day and night, and most organisms carry in their cells a common, (roughly) 24-hour beat. In animals, this rhythm emerges from a tiny brain structure called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus. Take it out of the brain and keep it alive in a lab dish and this "brain clock" will keep on ticking, ramping up or gearing down production of certain proteins at specific times of the day, day after day. A new study reveals that the brain clock itself is driven, in part, by metabolism, the production ...

Mayo study: Exercise can help cancer patients, but few oncologists suggest it

2012-08-29

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Numerous studies have shown the powerful effect that exercise can have on cancer care and recovery. For patients who have gone through breast or colon cancer treatment, regular exercise has been found to reduce recurrence of the disease by up to 50 percent. But many cancer patients are reluctant to exercise, and few discuss it with their oncologists, according to a Mayo Clinic study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. "As doctors, we often tell patients that exercise is important, but to this point, nobody had studied what patients ...

Why retire later?

2012-08-29

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---What if every U.S. worker got an automatic 10 percent pay raise at age 55? According to a new University of Michigan study, most people would work quite a bit longer to enjoy the extra income before they retired. By eliminating social security payroll taxes starting when workers are 55-years old, the study shows that take-home pay would jump by 10.6 percent and they would work 1.5 years longer on average, paying more income taxes and helping to reduce the Federal deficit. "People are living longer, healthier lives, and so far have opted to take most ...

Evaluate children's stress after natural disasters

2012-08-29

CORAL GABLES, FL (August 28, 2012) -- As Hurricane Isaac nears the Gulf Coast, one may wonder what the impact of natural disasters are on children. Who is most at risk for persistent stress reactions? How can such youth be identified and assisted in the aftermath of a destructive storm? Dr. Annette M. La Greca, a professor of psychology and pediatrics at the University of Miami, and her colleagues, have been studying children's disaster reactions following Hurricanes Andrew (1992), Charley (2004) and Ike (2008). Recent findings from Hurricane Ike shed light on these questions ...

Kindergarten readiness: Are shy kids at an academic disadvantage?

2012-08-29

CORAL GABLES, FL (August 28, 2012)—Parents of young children hope for a successful kindergarten experience that will set their youngsters on the right path of their educational journey. Some worry about their kids not adapting to the school environment, particularly when the children are talkative and overactive. Yet, a new study by the University of Miami (UM) shows that overly shy preschool children are at greater academic risk than their chatty and boisterous peers. The study is one of the first to follow the social and academic progress of children throughout the preschool ...

Pretend play may not be as crucial to child development as believed, new study shows

2012-08-29

Pretend play can be fun for preschool children, but a new University of Virginia study, published in a recent online edition of the journal Psychological Bulletin, finds that it is not as crucial to a child's development as currently believed. Pretend play is any play a child engages in, alone, with playmates, or with adults, that involves uses of the imagination to create a fantasy world or situation, such as making toy cars go "vrrooooom" or making dolls talk. Based on a number of key studies over four decades, pretend play is widely considered by psychologists – and ...

URMC researchers connect new genetic signature to leukemia

2012-08-29

University of Rochester Medical Center scientists believe they are the first to identify genes that underlie the growth of primitive leukemia stem cells, and then to use the new genetic signature to identify currently available drugs that selectively target the rogue cells. Although it is too early to attach significance to the drug candidates, two possible matches popped up: A drug in development for breast cancer (not approved by the Food and Drug Administration), and another experimental agent that, coincidentally, had been identified earlier by a URMC laboratory as ...

Diagnosis often missed for Hispanic children with developmental delay, autism

2012-08-29

This press release is available in Spanish.(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Hispanic children often have undiagnosed developmental delays and large numbers of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic children who first were thought to have developmental delay actually had autism, researchers affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute have found. The study, one of the largest to date to compare development in Hispanic and non-Hispanic children, is published in the journal Autism. The results lead the study authors to recommend increased public health efforts to improve awareness, especially ...

Global environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys significantly expand known geographic and ecological niche ranges of marine fish, highlighting current biases in conservation and ecological modeling

Can branding improve school lunches?

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: