$2 millions bucks down the drain. The AP reports:
Federal officials are turning to psychology in a new approach to get kids to choose healthier foods in the school lunch line.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to use marketing tricks to encourage kids to pick fruits and veggies over cookies and french fries.
Some of the ideas include hiding chocolate milk behind plain milk, putting the salad bar near checkout, placing fruit in pretty baskets and accepting only cash as payment for desserts.
Studies by Cornell University researchers have found these tactics work, and Cornell will start a new child nutrition center to test more of these methods.
Let me tell you something. My kids would crawl over the plain milk bottles to get at the chocolate milk. In fact, my kids would crawl over shards of broken plain milk bottles to get to the chocolate milk. What they’d probably do is lay down the contents of the salad bar over the broken milk bottles in order to cushion their feet as they crawled to get to the chocolate milk and cookies.
Look I’ve got five kids. I don’t want them to eat a lot of junk so I don’t give them a lot of junk. I don’t give them the choice between a Suzy Q or an apple. I don’t ask them if they want milk or soda.
I have a brilliant idea. If schools want to stop kids from buying chocolate milk and cookies at the cafeteria line STOP SELLING THEM!!! There, for my brilliant idea do I get the $2 million?
