In Choices Magazine, behavior economists tackle the lunchroom cafeteria. (Via the Monkey Cage.)
In general, when schools require students to take vegetables, only about 35% of the students actually consume the vegetables, resulting in substantial waste of food and resources (see, for example, Price and Just, 2009). In fact, a recent study suggests that requiring students to take vegetables rather than allowing them to control this choice by selecting or rejecting vegetables has virtually no impact on vegetable consumption, while nearly doubling the waste from vegetables (Price and Just, 2009). Alternatively, consider what might happen if students were given the choice between carrots and celery. In a recent experiment we conducted at Cornell, 120 junior high participants in a summer 4H program were told they must take carrots with their lunch, while another 120 were given the choice of carrots or of celery (103 of 120 selected the carrots). Of those required to take the carrots, 69% (83 of 120) consumed the carrots, while 91% (94 of 103) of those choosing between carrots or celery consumed their vegetable. Such results suggest that requiring a vegetable, while offering an active choice between at least two options substantially reduces the waste from vegetables, and increases the nutritional content of the foods consumed.
Apt. 11d 
I would expect rather different numbers from non-4H kids. Growing vegetables and showing them at the fair is one of the traditional 4H projects. (Offering a choice may still be better, though.)
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Some people like carrots, some like celery. Offering two vegetables increases the chance you can choose a palatable vegetable. It does not (necessarily) mean choice by itself increases vegetable consumption. 9% didn’t like either. For example, had the choice been between broccoli and cauliflower, the outcome might have been different. Adding bell pepper slices might have improved the outcome, because it expanded the range of tastes.
As to the “waste” issue, well, my kids’ former public school offered vegetables on a tray. As it wasn’t required, very few kids took any. Vegetable consumption was perhaps 5%. I believe this approach was not allowed under the school lunch program, but no one ratted them out.
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Parents serve lunch at our school (though we don’t pick what’ available). 0.10). But, it wouldn’t be unexpected to believe that choice itself would make a different in consumption, independent of the choice made. We need more data to differentiate between choice = better utility through better matching of preference v choice produces utility independent of preferences.
Other questions would include the effects of the degree of choice (i.e. choose between 2, among 3, among many, have the option of declining, . . .). The choice issues come up a lot in behavioral economics and there’s more data than this study on them.
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Nice article, if you click through. There’s a discussion of several behavioral interventions on their effect on food choices.
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Unrelated behavior economics in the lunchroom aside: Our Middle School has assigned seating in the lunch room. While I think that is ridiculous, and people should get to sit with whomever they want, the status quo is maintained due to the 33/33/33 division between (a) parents who agree with me; (b) parents who think their kid would be excluded and ostracized if everyone could choose not to sit with her; and (c) parents who agree with the concept, but want it changed around so that their kid gets a better seat.
As with Puerto Rican statehood/ independence, the end result is that nothing happens.
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“Our Middle School has assigned seating in the lunch room. ”
How do they do this in a school with a cafeteria?
We had assigned seating at my high school (which was a K-12). In our case, though, we had 12 person tables, each staffed with a teacher (who had to eat lunch with us), divided among the 4 grades (3 kids from each grade), with a schedule that rotated on a 2 week schedule, with the goal of having every child sit at every table (teachers stayed) and of having every child sit with every other child*.
I’m guessing something simpler is used elsewhere?
*I know the details because it was my first programming endeavor, to generate the seating chart; I did it using brute force on very old computers, and incomplete number theory skills; My algorithm ran for hours without founding complete solutions, but we eventually deemed it good enough.
PS: I thought assigned seating, the way we did it, was a good thing.
PPS: 66% of your school seems to like assigned seating.
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It’s not really very complicated. You get a form that says you are assigned to Table 6, and then you sit there. There’s generally a boy half and girl half, with Eldest Raggirl sitting at the border, as a rare girl with male friends.
66% are also unhappy with the current arrangement, and many who want a new formal arrangement would prefer student choice to the status quo. As Kenneth Arrow taught us, when there are more than 2 options, and preferences non-continuous, the idea of a “majority will” breaks down. It all depends on how you ask the question.
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“The criticism of the kids being 4H doesn’t really invalidate the difference (since both were 4H kids)”
No, it’s just that I think that real world veggie-eating will be substantially lower, in both groups.
Also, I’d note that a lot of packaged baby carrots are terrible–slimy and tasteless.
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I agree that the carrot eating rate seems high, and detecting effects depends on the total rate being good (ie impossible to detect a difference I the groups, if only one or two kids eat the carrots).
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And there are always more than two choices, really. Do the table assignments remain constant, or do they change?
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And, what if you don’t sit at your assigned seat? or try to trade with someone?
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In elementary school we ate in the classrooms, in assigned seats, and at least two aides monitoring us. They made sure children ate the vegetables and main dish and didn’t just eat the dessert. Chocolate milk was allowed 2 days a year, on chocolate milk day. Otherwise the kids had to drink white milk, and that was monitored. Candy was prohibited from the classroom, even in packed lunches. My school was low-income but high performing, and obviously there were other reasons, but I wonder if kids being well fed on reasonably nutritious food helped (most kids got free breakfast as well).
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Also, really 33% of the parents think their kid would be ostracized and no one would sit with them if seats weren’t assigned?
BI’s description of monitoring of food/lunch reminded me of some tidbits I’ve read from the French system (from more than one book). One interesting bit was the longer period of feeding (i.e. people putting food into a child’s mouth, rather than the child putting it into their mouth). Maybe it’s really true that the majority of children won’t eat veggies unless they’re forced to. And then, we only build up a tolerance for them.
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