The Effect of a Descriptive Norm Promoting Vegetable Selection in a Workplace Restaurant Setting: an Observational Study

University of Birmingham

Status: Completed

Conditions: Eating Behaviour

Treatments: Other: Social Norms Poster

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT02603263

UBirmingham-SNS7

Details and patient eligibility

About

Encouraging individuals to eat fruit and vegetables is difficult. However, recent evidence suggests that using social-based information might help. For instance, it has been shown that if people think that others are eating lots of fruit and vegetables, that they will consume more food to match the 'norm'.The purpose of this study was to determine whether social norm messages could be used to enhance vegetable purchases in workplace restaurants, in an observational study.

Full description

In this study the investigators hypothesised that placing posters containing social norm messages promoting vegetable consumption in three workplace restaurants, would increase the purchase of meals with vegetables, and that this effect would be sustained over time. The investigators recruited three restaurants to this study. For two weeks (Pre-intervention phase) the investigators used till receipts to monitor the number of meals sold with or without vegetables at baseline. For the following two weeks (Intervention phase) the investigators placed social norms posters around the three restaurants, while continuing to collect till receipts. After this, the posters were removed, and receipts were monitored for a final two weeks (Post-intervention).

Enrollment: 9,445 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Purchase of a meal at one of the restaurants

Exclusion criteria

• None

Trial design

9,445 participants in 1 patient group

Workplace Restaurant Customers

Description:

1 Group (Workplace Restaurant Customers) across 3 sites (data to be combined at end of study) Study consists of three phases: 1. Pre Intervention 2. Intervention 3. Post Intervention All phases lasted two weeks and included monitoring till receipts for meals (these were automatically generated and held on the tills electronically). The intervention phase consisted of posters being displayed in the restaurants, featuring a Social Norms Poster.

Treatment:

Other: Social Norms Poster