Impact of trayless dining intervention on food choices of university students

An Integrative Scoping Review of Behavioral Economics Applications in Higher Education: Opportunities for Academic Pharmacy

OBJECTIVES

This integrative scoping review explores the applications of behavioral economics within higher education, particularly, through the lens of nudging (a concept that leverages insights from economics and psychology to guide individuals' decisions subtly). The primary objective is to provide a broad overview of interventions that use behavioral economics principles and, secondarily, discuss their potential to improve pharmacy education and create a foundation for future research in this area.

FINDINGS

The review analyzed 89 studies that applied behavioral economics principles in higher education settings. Reminders and prompts were the most frequently used principles, with generally positive outcomes, especially in enrollment management. Framing, incentives, and salience also demonstrated effectiveness, depending on the context. Social norms and simplification showed mixed results, whereas priming, loss aversion, feedback, comparison, and commitment had varying degrees of success in influencing behavior.

SUMMARY

Behavioral economics principles offer valuable insights and tools for enhancing various aspects of education. The review highlights the potential for using these principles to improve student engagement, enrollment processes, and health and well-being initiatives. However, it emphasizes the importance of context-specific design and careful implementation when applying these interventions. Future research opportunities exist to further explore the applications of behavioral economics in pharmacy education and beyond.

The rewards US university students associate with campus dining halls and food choices

Objective: To understand the rewards university students associate with two key decisions shaping food choices. Participants: Thirty-eight university students. Methods: In this exploratory research, we conducted focus groups to identify the rewards students associated with choosing to eat at the campus dining hall and their specific food choices within that venue. We also obtained feedback on reward nomenclatures identified via a content analysis of health and business literature. Results: Students primarily chose the dining hall due to its convenience, foods offered, and the social aspects of the venue. Rewards associated with food choice included freshness, customization, variety, local foods, healthy foods, convenience, and portion size. Nomenclatures were relevant and meaningful. Conclusions: These students associate food choice decisions with rewards. Universities should consider whether dining halls and menu items link healthy foods to the rewards prioritized by students. Reward nomenclatures may be useful for researchers investigating the drivers of food choice.

How to enable healthier and more sustainable food practices in collective meal contexts: A scoping review

Collective meal contexts such as restaurants, cafeterias and canteens can help accelerate transitions to healthier and more sustainable diets. However, evidence from intervention studies on these contexts lacks integration. This scoping review aimed to map determinants of dietary change in collective meal contexts across multiple settings, interventions, target groups, and target behaviors. The review provided two main outcomes: (i) identifying intervention components to promote dietary change in collective meal contexts, based on the existing body of evidence; and (ii) classifying and integrating these intervention components into an overarching framework of behavior change (i.e., COM-B system). The review encompassed twenty-eight databases via two indexing services and extracted information from 232 primary sources (27,458 records selected for title and abstract screening, 574 articles selected for full-text screening). We identified a total of 653 intervention activities, which were classified into intervention components and grouped under three broad themes, namely contextual and environmental changes, social influence, and knowledge and behavioral regulation. Multi-component interventions tended to report overall positive outcomes. The review proposes several directions for future research, including: (i) moving toward more theory-based interventions in collective meal contexts; (ii) providing more detailed information about intervention settings, implementation, target groups, activities, and materials; and (iii) improving the use of open science practices in the field. Furthermore, the review offers a free, original, open-access list and synthesis of 277 intervention studies in collective meal contexts, which can help intervention planners and evaluators optimize their efforts to promote healthier and more sustainable food practices in these contexts.

Invited review: The consumer and dairy food waste: An individual plus policy, systems, and environmental perspective

An estimated 40% of food produced in the United States is wasted, which poses a significant barrier to achieving a sustainable future-so much so that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal no. 12, to "ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns," includes a goal to "halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reduce food losses along the production and supply chains by 2030." Annually, consumers waste approximately 90 billion pounds of food, equating to roughly 1 pound per person per day. More specifically, consumer waste is the largest contributor to the food waste problem when compared with other steps along the supply chain, such as production, post-harvest handling and storage, processing, and distribution. Furthermore, American families discard approximately 25% of the food and beverages they buy. When considering the type of waste coming from households, fresh fruits and vegetables rank highest at 22%, with dairy products, at 19%, following in close second. A variety of factors contribute to why consumers waste so much food. For dairy, commonly referenced reasons are related to the misunderstanding of date labels, poor planning of purchases, spoilage before consuming products, and improper storage. This wasted food accumulates in landfills and produces methane when decomposing, resulting in environmental consequences related to ozone depletion and climate change. Milk can have negative environmental impacts when disposed of down the drain. This review will discuss the food waste problem, causes, and potential solutions at the consumer level, with particular focus on dairy waste. An individual plus policy, system, and environment approach will also be integrated to provide a well-rounded view of the issue.

Toward a Healthy and Environmentally Sustainable Campus Food Environment: A Scoping Review of Postsecondary Food Interventions

Interventions are urgently needed to transform the food system and shift population eating patterns toward those consistent with human health and environmental sustainability. Postsecondary campuses offer a naturalistic setting to trial interventions to improve the health of students and provide insight into interventions that could be scaled up in other settings. However, the current state of the evidence on interventions to support healthy and environmentally sustainable eating within postsecondary settings is not well understood. A scoping review of food- and nutrition-related interventions implemented and evaluated on postsecondary campuses was conducted to determine the extent to which they integrate considerations related to human health and/or environmental sustainability, as well as to synthesize the nature and effectiveness of interventions and to identify knowledge gaps in the literature. MEDLINE (via PubMed), CINAHL, Scopus, and ERIC were searched to identify articles describing naturalistic campus food interventions published in English from January 2015 to December 2019. Data were extracted from 38 peer-reviewed articles, representing 37 unique interventions, and synthesized according to policy domains within the World Cancer Research Foundation's NOURISHING framework. Most interventions were focused on supporting human health, whereas considerations related to environmental sustainability were minimal. Interventions to support human health primarily sought to increase nutrition knowledge or to make complementary shifts in food environments, such as through nutrition labeling at point of purchase. Interventions to support environmental sustainability often focused on reducing food waste and few emphasized consumption patterns with lower environmental impacts. The implementation of integrated approaches considering the complexity and interconnectivity of human and planetary health is needed. Such approaches must go beyond the individual to alter the structural determinants that shape our food system and eating patterns.

The effectiveness of nudging interventions to promote healthy eating choices: A systematic review and an intervention among Italian university students

Nudges are changes in choice architecture (i.e., the environment in which people make decisions) aiming to steer a person's decision to a particular choice, without restricting alternative options or changing financial incentives. These strategies have been extensively used to promote healthy eating, above all among youths, whose behaviors can still be easily shaped compared to older people's. The current paper describes two studies aiming to investigate the effectiveness of nudging interventions in promoting healthy eating among university students. The first study consisted of a systematic review mapping all the published studies which describe the effectiveness of this kind of intervention worldwide. Twelve eligible records were selected after a search of three different databases. Information about the publication of the record, the adopted research methods and the described intervention was retrieved from each selected record. Based on this review's results, a new nudging intervention was developed to promote healthy food choice among Italian university students. The intervention aimed to modify students' choice for each of the Italian meal courses: first course (pasta, rice or soup), second course (meat, fish, cheese or cured meat), side dish, bread, and fruit. An Italian university cafeteria was observed in two phases: a pre-intervention phase (baseline) and a post-intervention phase (nudging strategies were implemented in the cafeteria's architecture). The applied nudging intervention was effective in promoting healthy choices in relation to the second course, the side dish, and the bread, but it did not significantly affect choices related to the first course or the fruit. Implications of these results and suggestions for future interventions are discussed.

Examining Nutrition and Food Waste Trade-offs Using an Obesity Prevention Context

Obesity and food waste are related issues, both exacerbated by an overabundance of food. Efforts to reduce food waste can have varying unintended, obesity-related consequences, which further underscores the need for a systems approach to food waste reduction. Yet, these 2 issues are rarely examined together. It is the authors' point of view that for nutrition educators and other public health practitioners to develop interventions that simultaneously address food waste and obesity, they need to understand how actions at the consumer-level may impact waste and its related food system consequences earlier in the supply chain.

Food Choice and Waste in University Dining Commons-A Menus of Change University Research Collaborative Study

The purpose of this multi-campus research was to investigate the relationships of food type and personal factors with food choice, consumption, and waste behaviors of college students at all-you-care-to-eat dining facilities. The amount of food taken and wasted was indirectly measured in units relative to the plate size using before and after photos taken by the diners themselves. Animal protein and mixed dishes (e.g., stir fry, sandwich) took up more of diners’ plate space and these items were correlated to both greater hedonic appeal as well as a higher likelihood of the item being pre-plated. Greater confidence in liking an item before choosing it was correlated to a larger portion being taken. Finally, increased satisfaction with the meal and frequency of visiting the dining commons was correlated to less food waste. Understanding these potential food choice drivers can help dining facilities better target healthier meals to diners while reducing food waste.

College campuses' influence on student weight and related behaviours: A review of observational and intervention research

Research indicates that most college students are not meeting dietary and physical activity guidelines, and the average student gains an estimated 1.6-3.0 kg during 4 years of study. College administrations are well-positioned to influence student weight-related health behaviours by ensuring that campus environments/policies promote health. However, to date, campus health interventions have largely addressed individual and interpersonal factors rather than environmental/policy-level changes. Using an ecological perspective, this narrative review synthesizes the literature on campus environmental/policy-level factors (e.g., food availability, physical activity requirements) associated with student diet, physical activity and weight, as well as campus interventions to address these factors. Web of Science and PubMed databases were searched between December 2018 and November 2019. Results indicate that campus food environments may contribute to overconsumption and weight gain, and the number of campuses requiring students to participate in physical activity courses is in decline. Eight examples of environmental/policy-level campus interventions are presented: nutrition labels in dining halls, campus-wide healthy choice marketing campaigns, restricted payment methods for à la cart dining, trayless dining, health-themed residence halls, peer health education programmes, active classroom spaces and physical activity course requirements. Implications for research and health promotion programmes/policies in the field of college health are discussed.