full title: 

“The Formation and malleability of Dietary Habits: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Low Income families”

Abstract

This paper evaluates with a field experiment the extent to which dietary habits are malleable early on in childhood and later in life. We evaluate two treatments – one that targets what people eat, the other that targets how people eat. 285 low income families with young children were recruited and assigned either to a control group or one of two treatments, each of them lasting for 12 consecutive weeks. In the first treatment, families received food groceries at home for free for 12 weeks and were asked to prepare five specific healthy meals per week. In the second treatment, families were simply asked to reduce snacking and eat at regular times. We collected a range of measures of food preferences, dietary intake, as well as  BMI and biomarkers based on blood samples. We find some evidence that children’s preferences have been affected by both treatments, and we find that their BMI distribution shifted significantly relative to the control group, i.e. they became relatively “thinner”. On the other hand, we find little evidence of any effects on adults and these effects are not consistent with adopting a healthier diet. We conclude that exposure to a healthy diet and regularity of food intake possibly play a role in shaping dietary habits, but influencing dietary choices in the short and long run remains a major challenge.