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Incentivizing Vegetable Consumption in School‐Aged Children: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Author(s) -
De Marchi Elisa,
Cavaliere Alessia,
Nayga Rodolfo M.,
Banterle Alessandro
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of consumer affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1745-6606
pISSN - 0022-0078
DOI - 10.1111/joca.12268
Subject(s) - incentive , consumption (sociology) , environmental health , economics , public economics , business , medicine , microeconomics , social science , sociology
We conducted a field experiment to test the effect of nonmonetary incentives in increasing children's vegetable consumption during lunch at school. We measured children's daily vegetable consumption for four consecutive weeks prior to the provision of incentives, for four consecutive weeks during the incentive provision, and for three consecutive weeks right after the provision of incentives. To check the longer‐term effect of the incentive provision, we measured children's daily vegetable consumption 11 weeks after the postintervention period. Results suggest that the incentives are effective in increasing vegetable consumption and that this effect persisted several weeks after the provision of the incentives ended. This is an important topic since gaining a better understanding of effects of nonmonetary incentives can help in the design of nutrition and health policies aimed at improving the dietary behavior of children and potentially reducing childhood obesity.