O19 Incorporating Behavioral Economic Strategies into Children's Restaurant Menus to Improve Healthfulness: Parent Perceptions

Abstract

Background Children's restaurant meals are nutritionally deficient; use of behavioral economic strategies may improve healthfulness. Parents play a role in children's restaurant meal selection, thus understanding parent preferences and potential behavioral economic strategies for healthful children menu options is warranted. Objective To examine parent preferences for 5 children's menu attributes featuring behavioral economic strategies. Study Design, Setting, Participants A descriptive, cross-sectional survey integrating a conjoint design was developed along with 8 children's menus. Menus were manipulated by varying levels of attributes [meal price, healthful side dishes, number of side dish items, healthful entrees, and cost for sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB)]. Parents with children 4–10 years old were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk and asked to rate menus using an 11-point Likert scale (0 = Not at all appealing, 10 = Very appealing). Analysis A conjoint (regression) analysis was conducted to discern parent preference for each attribute and an overall menu preference. Descriptive statistics (means) were used to describe overall parent menu preferences and ratings. Results Ratings were generally high for the menus (µ = 6.7, SD = 2.4). Parents (n = 463) had the strongest preference for choice on side dishes (β = 0.73) and low-priced menus (β = 0.51). Parents reported the weakest preference for inclusion of healthful entrees (β = 0.04) and SSB (β = 0.18). The most preferred menu selected (60.7%, n = 281) included a low price, no bundled side (choice of side dish from multiple options), choice of 2 sides, healthful entree present, and an additional $1 for SSB. Conclusion A discrepancy between derived menu preference and a stated menu preference exists. Parents selected a socially desirable menu with healthful options and cost for SSB, contrary to the conjoint derived menu preferences. This discrepancy, along with derived preferences for multiple side dish options, could have implications for which behavioral economic strategies may be effective to improve quality of children's meals in restaurants, as parents’ true interest in healthful entrees is undetermined. Funding USDA Colorado State University, Departments of Marketing and Food Science and Human Nutrition.