Behavioral interventions for choice decisions: convenience and visibility interventions versus taste preference

Abstract

Successful behavioral interventions to reduce the consumption of unhealthy food help lessen the burden of non-communicable diseases. In prior research, a conventional approach such as providing nutrition information could not overcome the “tasty” impact of unhealthy food. This study is a field experiment, conducting in a casual restaurant, designed to assess the effects of behavioral- and cognitively-oriented interventions on healthy meal choice. The interventions include convenience enhancement, visibility enhancement and a combination of the two. The results show that adding difficulty in ordering high-calorie food along with visibility enhancement could reduce calorie intake and compensate for the calorie increase caused by the taste effect. However, the effectiveness of interventions is different across different types of participants.