- So hi, everybody.
My name is Sara.
And we are going to play a game.
What do guys think this game is called?
- Simon Says.
- How about we call it...
- Red light, green light.
- It's called The Shopping Game.
How many of you like to go food shopping?
You do?
How many of you guys like to pick out things and put them
in the cart?
Me, too.
So today, you get to pick out things and put them
in the cart.
And there are three rules.
Rule number 1--
So this game is a nice way of illustrating
all the different choices that we
have to make in our everyday lives, which actually have
big implications for the way that we eat
and our diets and our long-term health.
And so in this case, we took a whole bunch of choices.
And we said to the kids, we're going
to put some rules on those choices.
You can have five things, but you get one treat.
And you can't repeat any of your choices.
And surprisingly, there was actually
a fair amount of variation among kids
who were roughly the same age.
All right.
Well, I think we should go shopping.
What do you guys think?
- Yeah.
- Grab your baskets.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So how does this little game relate to the broader research
that we do here at Harvard at the Radcliffe Institute?
So number one, we are constantly faced with food choices
in the environments in which we live.
And it's more often the case that the food choices
are unhealthy and not healthy.
Particularly if you're in a state or a city
where you have a large low-income or minority
population, those populations tend
to be at higher risk for poor diet,
at higher risk for obesity, and lots of conditions associated
with excess body weight.
And so there's a real interest in thinking about, what
are the things that we can do to change the broader
environment to encourage people to be healthier?
Can you tell me, of these items, which is the treat?
- The soda.
So one of these things is a treat, Cecelia.
Which one is the treat?
What is that again?
- Juice.
- In life, one of the ways that research becomes important
is, when we do put rules in society--
like, for example, saying that we're going to make beverages
cost more money if they have added sugar, or saying
that we're going to put calories on restaurant menus--
when we add those sorts of rules,
does that either change the way consumers behave,
or does that change the way industries behave?
Why is juice a treat?
- Because it has--
because it has sugar.
- And why is soda the treat?
- Because soda has lots of sugar.
- So let me ask you a question, if you were at school
and they served juice all the time,
would you drink juice all the time?
- Yes.
- You would?
You would drink it all the time?
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
- Bad.
- That's a bad thing.
So when we think about different examples of, is there
evidence to actually support changes in our broader food
environment that are actually having an impact on our health,
the answer is yes.
And so if we start with beverage taxes,
Berkeley was the first US city to do this.
And what they've shown is that about a year after the tax
has been in place, that people's purchasing of those items
has dropped by about 10%.
Sugary beverages are one of the leading sources
of added sugar in our diet.
And they are huge contributors to weight gain.
They also cause dental caries, or cavities.
Another example is on the restaurant setting.
And so because there is this federal rule now which says,
if you're a large chain restaurant--
so if you have more than 20 outlets around the country--
you have to post calories alongside price.
What the research shows is, the impact of that
is not that you and I make different choices
at the point of purchase.
There's a little bit of that, but not much.
The impact is that restaurants are changing the amount
of calories on their menu.
So for example, if you look across these large chain
restaurants, the average calories
in newly introduced menu items has gone down
by about 70 calories or 12%, which may sound small,
but that difference can actually really
have a big impact, particularly because, on any given day,
a third of kids and a third of adolescents
and a third of adults are eating in these restaurants.
And so if you're carving out calories and not
relying on people to make choices,
you are going to have more of an effect.
- Thank you for playing.
- You're welcome.
- Thanks for playing the shopping game.
- Thanks, Mom.
- [LAUGHS]
- Bye.
- 20 M&Ms, that's it.
- OK.