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The public health community has long known that
changing default options is a key strategy for making the healthy choice the easy choice. (If you’d like more background,
watch our recent webinar on the topic.) An updated analysis of Disney’s default practices has been published in the
Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. It shows that two-thirds (66.3%) of guests ordering kids’ meals at Disney theme parks accept healthy default beverages and half (47.9%) accept healthy default side dishes.
Given that the author (James O. Hill) has
ties to Coca-Cola and that it is corporate-sponsored research, it’s important to read the findings carefully. The findings reported in this journal article are consistent with data Disney previously shared (and we’ve been
using) in a
corporate responsibility report, the results are not favorable to Coca-Cola, and they are consistent with a
large body of academic research that shows that people tend to stick with default offerings (for food, retirement savings, organ donation, and a whole host of other behaviors). So we’ve decided to use the results and share
them. If you’d like to too, below are some social media posts. Sharing the results on Disney’s favorable practice at parks could help nudge other companies to follow Disney’s lead.
Facebook
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If companies push junk, more people eat junk. If they support healthy options, guess what? More people get healthy options.
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A default is what you get if you don’t order something else. So what do you think happened when Disney theme parks changed the default beverages and sides for their kids’ meals to healthy options? More kids got
healthier foods and drinks!
Twitter
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Research shows people tend to stick with defaults. That’s why defaults should be healthy: less soda, more water.
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Cheers to @Disney for making it easier for families to order healthy at its theme parks!
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RT if you think restaurants and theme parks should make the healthy choice the easy choice for kids.
Sincerely,
Margo G. Wootan, D.Sc.
Director of Nutrition Policy
Center for Science in the Public Interest
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