August 19, 2024 — “There must be a pony somewhere.” So goes the punchline of a joke about a manure pile that has circulated in various forms for more than a century. A new report in BMC Nutrition brings this joke to mind. From a great muck of uncontrolled data about dietary nudges in a single hospital convenience store, […]
August 8, 2022 — A fascinating debate is unfolding in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). It’s mostly about publication bias, but the bottom line question is not so esoteric. Can a nudge make meaningful behavior change happen in a wide variety of situations? Late last year, Stephanie Mertens and colleagues published a meta-analysis of nudging […]
February 24, 2020 — Bless their hearts. Really. We know they mean well. Three health policy gurus have a new viewpoint in JAMA Pediatrics on childhood obesity treatment. They explain “how children and families make daily obesity-related decisions.” Because they’re “not rational.” So you have to “keep it simple” for them. Thus, behavioral economics can provide a wonderful little […]
October 24, 2017 — It’s an easy trap. Prevention is a cherished goal for childhood obesity. Behavioral economics has such a strong cachet that it just earned Richard Thaler a Nobel Prize. So when elegant research that says little nudges – like a sticker on a piece of fruit – can lead children to make better food choices, we want to […]
