School tries Happy Meal-type prize to promote healthy eating

CINCINNATI — Since the 1970's, when the Happy Meal was developed by a Midwestern advertising executive, McDonald's has made incentivizing food choices something of an art form. The little box of fast-food calories with a little toy surprise has proven to be so appealing to children that in 2010 San Francisco passed a law prohibiting toys from being sold with meals that fail to meet certain nutritional standards.

Now, researchers are looking at ways of using a similar model to get kids to choose fruits and vegetables with their school lunches.

Childhood obesity is a growing problem that currently affects about one third of American kids, and for years, public health officials -- first lady Michelle Obama among them -- have been arguing in favor of making school lunches healthier.

In partnership with Cincinnati Public Schools, researchers at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have piloted a program that made a relatively small adjustment to the lunch program at one low-income public elementary school.

"The components are the entree with whole grain, fruits, vegetables, a salad bar and milk, which could either be flavored or plain low fat milk," said Robert Siegel, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "The problem is the students don't necessarily select the best combination of those, and they often select chocolate milk."

Chocolate milk is often high in sugar and can be no better than soda in terms of healthfulness.

"We came up with the idea of the power plate: plain milk, main dish or entree, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables or salad," said Siegel, who will present the program's findings at the European Child Obesity Group Congress in Austria on Saturday.
Students had the choice of between three and five options, and if they chose the options that constituted the "power plate," they