Increasing Healthy Food Purchases in a University Market: Research Proposal

A Behavioral UX + Applied Behavior Analysis Case Study

Overview

College students form many lifelong habits during their transition into adulthood—including how they buy and consume food. Research shows that poor dietary choices during this period significantly increase the risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and long-term economic burden.

This project sought to evaluate how subtle environmental design changes in a university marketplace could influence students’ healthy food purchasing behavior. Specifically, I proposed examining whether strategic shelf placement and visual nutrition prompts increased the sales of a target healthy item (yellow squash).

Problem

Despite increased awareness of nutrition and wellness, college students consistently fail to meet dietary guidelines.

Setting

Fox Lodge Marketplace — a café/market hybrid serving ~2,500 undergraduates, 65% living on campus.

Research Questions

Does relocating produce closer to checkout increase the purchase of yellow squash?

Does adding a visual nutrition prompt further increase sales compared to location changes alone?

Can micro-interventions within campus markets meaningfully shift health-related consumer behavior?

Methodology

Study Design

A reversal design (ABAB) is proposed to evaluate the effects of visual prompts on yellow squash sales.

A (Baseline): No prompt

B (Intervention): Relocate the product near checkout

Conditions alternated weekly across four weeks

All other variables (price, availability, store layout) held constant

References:

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Banfield, E. C., Liu, Y., Davis, J. S., Chang, S., & Frazier-Wood, A. C. (2016). Poor adherence to US dietary guidelines for children and adolescents in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey population. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 116(1), 21–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2015.08.010

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Sigurdsson, V., Larsen, N. M., & Gunnarsson, D. (2013). Healthy Food Products at the point of purchase: An in‐store experimental analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 47(1), 151–154. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.91

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