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Study: School Chefs Can Get Kids To Eat Healthier

BOSTON (CBS) -- Getting kids to eat healthy school lunches is all about taste and presentation, a new study finds.

A study from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health is said to be the first to examine the long-term impacts of using chefs and so-called "choice architecture" on eating healthy in schools.

Researcher Juliana Cohen says careful placement of healthy options and "employing a chef" appeared to increase the consumption of fruits and veggies.

"There's this misperception that schools can't afford chefs," Cohen told WBZ NewsRadio 1030. "But chef skills go beyond just making food taste better, they also help with inventory control and more efficient use of the foods, so food costs can actually go down in the schools."

"Choice architecture" is something already seen in retail stores to nudge customers to make certain choices.

"In schools what we can do is we can change the cafeteria environment to encourage kids to select more of the fruits or the vegetables," Cohen said.

She recommends putting vegetables first in a line, arranging fruits in a nice basket and putting white milk in front of chocolate milk.

Cohen said the important thing is that schools should not abandon healthier foods, even if students initially reject them.

"Children often need 10 or more exposures to a new food before they like them," she said. "This study found that students ate significantly more of the healthier foods once they had time to get used to them."

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Diane Stern reports: 

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