Smileys make kids eat more healthy food: study

Labelling healthy foods with smiley faces and offering small prizes for buying nutritious items may be an effective and low-cost way to make children eat healthy foods, according to a new study.
Making poor food choices in school cafeterias is a risk factor for childhood obesity. Therefore, efforts have focused on improving the quality of school lunches and enticing children to eat them, researchers said.
One such effort was a two-phase intervention to improve healthful eating among kindergarten through sixth-grade students at a school in Cincinnati.
The first phase consisted of placing green smiley face emoticons by the most nutritious foods in the school cafeteria, including fruits, vegetables, plain white fat-free milk and an entree with whole grains.

Three months later, researchers introduced the concept of a "Power Plate," which consisted of the four healthy foods. Children who selected a Power Plate could receive a small prize, such as a sticker, temporary tattoo or mini beach ball.
Prizes were given out at various times during the intervention if researchers saw a student with the four healthy foods/beverage.

Cash register receipts were used to measure differences in the purchase of healthy foods from baseline to the end of the five-month intervention.
Results showed plain milk purchases increased from 7.4 per cent to 48 per cent of total milk sales - a 549 per cent increase.

Meanwhile, chocolate milk selection decreased from 86.5 per cent to 44.6 per cent of total milk sales. The total amount of milk purchased remained constant from baseline to the end of the study.
In addition, fruit selection increased by 20 per cent from 1 to 1.2 items per student per day, and vegetable selection rose by 62 per cent from 0.74 to 1.2 items per student per day. Power Plate selection increased 335 per cent from baseline.
"It looks like we found a very promising, low-cost and effective way of improving the nutrition of elementary school children," said study author Robert Siegel, medical director of the Centre for Better Health and Nutrition of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre.

"This type of programme may be a useful component in schools trying to improve the nutrition and health of their students," said Siegel.
The study was presented at the Paediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego.