Super-sized meals, all-you-can-eat buffets, and family-size containers of chips and cereal have become the norm in American food culture. Yet large portions are a major contributor to rising rates of obesity in the nation, and getting people to choose smaller portions has proven difficult.
Surprisingly, just a small, inexpensive incentive may be enough to curb our super-sized appetites. Through what researchers are calling the “Happy Meal effect,” individuals appear to consistently choose a smaller portion when paired with a modest prize.
“It’s hard to choose less when food is in abundance, and is delicious and inexpensive,” says Martin Reimann, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Arizona, who led the study, soon to be published by the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. But offering a small inducement to reduce portion size “worked every time we tried it,” he says.
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Past studies have shown that money can incentivize individuals to quit smoking, lose weight, and stay off drugs, but those efforts typically involved large sums, such as $500 to reach a weight goal. That much money is simply not economical for any restaurant or health program.
Instead, Reimann, while a University of Southern California doctoral candidate, investigated whether a small incentive can yield the same result. Reimann’s team ran three studies.
First, they offered sixth graders a 9-inch sandwich or exactly half of that sandwich and a pair of inexpensive earbuds. Of those offered the incentive, 78 percent choose the smaller portion. Among students not offered the earbuds, 74 percent took the full-size portion.
In a second experiment, adults were offered a full-size serving of lunch or half that serving and a chance to win a gift card or frequent-flyer miles. The adults received the same choice at lunchtime each day for three days, to determine whether they might get bored of choosing an incentive.
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They didn’t. When the incentive was offered, participants overwhelmingly picked the smaller portion. When there was no incentive, most took the full-size lunch.
Incentives also worked in a real-life restaurant setting. Individuals who went into a Subway intending to buy a footlong sub were offered the option of a 6-inch sub plus a chance to win a $10, $50, or $100 lottery. The prices of the full-size sub and the half-size sub with the lottery ticket were identical. A smaller proportion of people opted for the incentive than in the first two experiments, but it still encouraged 5 to 12 percent to choose a smaller sandwich.
Reimann hopes restaurants will consider offering a menu option of smaller portions with an incentive that can still be sold at the same price as a full-size portion. “It’s economical for companies, and the consumer eats less, so it’s a win-win for both parties,” he says.