Testimonials - Dave Kabel
Food Service Director and Registered Dietitian for 16 districts in the Southern Tier of NY
As the Food Service Director and Registered Dietitian for 16 districts in the Southern Tier of NY, one of my top priorities is to provide healthy food choices to our students. The obesity crisis in America is real and the key to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is proper diet along with adequate exercise. The USDA sets the nutritional standards for school lunch program and we do our best to meet them.
The challenge is that children aren't always interested in eating what's best for them and from a business perspective we don't want to lose their participation in our program either. Our partnership with the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (the BEN Center) helps us feel that we have a fighting chance to make a difference in the lives of our students. We are already seeing some students make positive choices in the lunch lines. We are learning that it is not good to take away choices but that the goal is to help students make better choices. The BEN Center folks use the term “nudge” to describe the way they get kids to eat what's good for them. That's a good word to describe Behavioral Economics. We have participated in numerous interventions in our cafeterias and have watched students begin to make those better choices. By moving fruit and veggies on the line to eye level, by better dressing up the serving counters to make them more attractive, by getting servers to suggest a vegetable choice, by using bowls that make the salads look delicious, by changing the names of menu items so they sound good and by asking students about what they want to see in cafeterias, we are gaining their trust and their business.
The BEN Center people have also helped us train our staff in best practices and market ourselves to parents and school officials. They have presented new and better ways to showcase ourselves to our customers. I am excited to be a part of the solution and as we continue to work with the BEN Center I anticipate great success. I look forward to continuing our partnership and trying new ways to help our students learn about healthy eating.
