A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of nudging to increase fruit and vegetable choice

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Nudging refers to interventions that organize the choice architecture in order to alter people's behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. As a strategy to encourage healthy behaviour, nudging can serve as a complement to health education. However, the empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of nudging as a way to influence food choice remains contradictory. To address this issue, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to test the effects of nudging to encourage people to select more fruit and vegetables. METHODS: A systematic literature search was performed on PubMed, Medline, PsycInfo, Cochrane library, Scopus and Google Scholar. After quality assessment, 20 articles (23 studies) were retained for narrative synthesis. Twelve articles (14 studies) contained enough information to calculate effect-sizes for meta-analysis using Comprehensive Meta-analysis software. RESULTS: The meta...

Behavioural Insights and (Un)healthy Dietary Choices: a Review of Current Evidence

“…While the specific mechanisms differ among the surveyed studiesfrom changing the effort to obtain food, the perception of healthiness and quantity, and the sensation of foods (i.e., flavours or oral processing) before or during a mealmost results suggest that such interventions could effectively alter food choices. Studies reviewing changes in food positioning, dishware, portion size, and food variety find a meaningful influence on food choices (Broers et al 2017;Bucher et al 2016;Holden et al 2016;Hollands et al 2015;Roy et al 2015;Wadhera and Capaldi-Phillips 2014;Zlatevska et al 2014). Still, a relevant number of reviews could not support such an overall conclusion (Libotte et al 2014;Robinson et al 2014b;Skov et al 2013).…”

“…Also, the strength of the positioning effect is found to be heterogeneous and to depend on the type of manipulation and the magnitude of the change (Bucher et al 2016;Wisdom et al 2010). Considering only studies altering the position, the meta-analysis by Broers et al (2017) showed an overall positive effect of preferred positioning on fruit and vegetable choice (d = 0.39).…”

“…The emerging field of active and deliberate design of settings and contexts for healthier choices has been covered in several recent reviews that often vary in their definitions of nudging and choice architecture (e.g., Arno and Thomas 2016;Broers et al 2017;Bucher et al 2016;Wilson et al 2016). Some of these reviews focus on specific settings such as schools (Nørnberg et al 2015), universities (Roy et al 2015), and self-service settings (Skov et al 2013); others cover workplace interventions (Allan et al 2017) or children in their home environment (Lycett et al 2017).…”

“…The second meta-analysis (Broers et al 2017) focused on nudges fostering the choice of fruit and vegetables and found a modestly significant and positive effect of nudging interventions altering placement and properties of food choice, sales, and servings (Cohen's d = 0.3).…”

Promotion of novel plant-based dishes among older consumers using the ‘dish of the day’ as a nudging strategy in 4 EU countries

“…Recently, nudging strategies has been introduced to change people's diet-related behaviour (Boyland & Halford, 2013) and motivate them to make a healthier food choice (Broers, De Breucker, Van den Broucke, & Luminet, 2017;Bucher et al, 2016;Stroebele-Benschop, Depa, & de Castro, 2016). There is reason to believe that nudging could be applied to influence older people's food choice and promote their' healthy eating (Hansen, Skov, & Skov, 2016).…”