Menu engineering: A strategy for seniors to select healthier meals

Abstract

Aims:The specific objective of this ongoing investigation is to assess various menu manipulations and nutrition labelling to determine if they can effectively guide the older adult consumer to select healthier food items from a menu offering meals with differing nutritional attributes. Methods:One of three randomly assigned menus and a questionnaire were distributed to 150 senior adults (> 60 years of age) living in three assisted living residences, three congregate senior day programmes, and one senior church group in New Jersey, USA. A generic control menu, a treatment menu that used various merchandizing tools to promote the healthier menu items and the same treatment menu with nutritional labels added were designed. Participants selected their top five choices and then answered a short questionnaire, which surveyed demographics and menu selection background information.Results: The researchers found that certain menu merchandizing tools were effective, while nutrition labelling did not have a substantial effect for this population.

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

“…Some of studies showed that nudging could promote healthy eating (Dubbert, Johnson, Schlundt, & Montague, 1984;Feldman, Mahadevan, Su, Brusca, & Ruzsilla, 2011;McDaniel, Hunt, Hackes, & Pope, 2001) while some couldn't (Buscher et al, 2001;Feldman, Mahadevan, Su, Brusca, & Ruzsilla, 2011). For instance, Feldman et al (2011) investigated the effect of nutritional menu labelling on older people's meal selection, and they didn't find substantial effect on facilitating healthier meal choice, however, boxing menu items successfully encouraged older people to choose the meal with heathy items. Considering the differences of nudging designs and specific intervention operations, results may be influenced by multiple factors like stimuli, sample design, social interaction and environment.…”

Nutrition information and its influence on menu choice within higher education establishments

“…Examples include recent efforts to limit certain food products in schools (Gosliner et al, 2011;Hoefkens et al, 2011), government efforts for overall reductions of sodium in foods (Wyness, Butriss, & Stanner, 2011), municipal attempts at regulating soft drink serving sizes (Grynbaum, 2012), and the recent US Food and Drug Administration efforts to ban trans-fats from restaurant foods (FDA, 2013). Subliminal menu merchandizing, treatments or "nudging" consumers to healthy choice through the use of symbols may also have a modest effect in promoting healthier meal selections (Feldman, Mahadevan, Su, Brusca, & Ruzsilla, 2011). Modifying the food environment by merchandizing healthy choices is another option.…”

(Not) Eating for the environment: The impact of restaurant menu design on vegetarian food choice

“…One of the simplest ways to influence food consumption based on the principles of behavioral science is by changing the design of restaurant menus (Wansink & Love, 2014). The main design features that have been investigated are: the location of items on the menu (Dayan & Bar-Hillel, 2011;Wansink, 2015), how individual items are described (Wansink, Painter, & Van Ittersum, 2001), the inclusion of additional information (Visschers & Siegrist, 2015), and the visual design of the menu (Feldman, Mahadevan, Su, Brusca, & Ruzsilla, 2011). For example, people are more likely to select items from the top or bottom of a single list of foods or beverages (Dayan & Bar-Hillel, 2011), and location has been shown to affect choice from a bifold menu (Feldman et al, 2011).…”

“…The main design features that have been investigated are: the location of items on the menu (Dayan & Bar-Hillel, 2011;Wansink, 2015), how individual items are described (Wansink, Painter, & Van Ittersum, 2001), the inclusion of additional information (Visschers & Siegrist, 2015), and the visual design of the menu (Feldman, Mahadevan, Su, Brusca, & Ruzsilla, 2011). For example, people are more likely to select items from the top or bottom of a single list of foods or beverages (Dayan & Bar-Hillel, 2011), and location has been shown to affect choice from a bifold menu (Feldman et al, 2011). The impact of location on food choices occurs because of the primacy and recency effects (people are most likely to remember the last and first things they see) that are created by people's natural gaze motion (where the reader first looks and how their gaze moves around a printed page) when looking at a menu (Bowen & Morris, 1995).…”

“…Wansink and Love (2014) recommend four types of words which can influence consumer choice in restaurants: words with sensory appeal, words that trigger happy memories, geographic or location names with positive associations, and the names of well-liked brands. Besides manipulating food descriptions, attracting attention to menu items by adding boxes around them can increase the sales of these items (Feldman et al, 2011;Feldman, Su, Mahadevan, Brusca & Hartwell, 2014). Also, associating foods with certain symbols or colors can make people more likely to select these foods relative to simply providing information about the foods (Wagner, Howland, & Mann, 2015).…”