A few of my favorite things: design, food, public health

Today's NYTImes Op-Ed includes a graphic, Lunch Line Redesign,  that illustrates how some simple design tweaks lead to better, healthier choices in the school cafeteria.  Design tweaks like fruit in a large fruit bowl, rather than a flat metal pan, increased sales.  An ice cream freezer with a closed opaque top reduced ice cream sales.  And an express line for healthy lunches (no chips or dessert) doubled sales for healthy sandwiches.

All of this is indeed very cool, as the US faces an obesity epidemic, and healthy fresh food options must find their way into our behavioral choices.  If these design fixes can help subtly influence these choices - not just our nutritional knowledge alone - then all the better.

Recently, I've found myself in two sandwich chains - Au Bon Pain and Panera Bread Company - which post calorie counts on the billboard menus from which I ordered.  On each occasion, I subconsciously considered the 2 or 3 most appealing selections, and then steered toward the lowest calorie option of those.  I made some assumptions in these choices - for example, that the calories were relatively equal in nutritional value - protein, fiber, Vitamin A or iron content, etc.  I also assumed that the calorie counts were wrong (having been tested in some food lab somewhere, and likely varied slightly, and likely for the worse, by food preparer).  Still, I assumed the relative calorie counts among the various choices still held true.  All this, in the flash of a few milliseconds of decision-making in the mind of a relatively well-informed, health conscious person.

Lots of disciplines melded here - and I appreciate the interdisciplinary application of design, public health, behavioral psychology, and economics.  I wonder how all this plays out in other choices we make - spending decisions, condom use, working out, etc.  I also wonder if school lunches are any less gross than they used to be.