Brian Wansink, PhD, has built a career from his fascination with the oddities of human eating behavior. The Iowa native first came to many people’s attention in 2006, with the publication of his fourth book, Mindless Eating.

Entertaining, enlightening and surprising, Mindless Eating explored why our eating habits are not what we think they are and documented his views with behavioral science experiments that illustrated why many snacking and mealtime choices are unconscious ones, driven by factors diners are often unaware of.

Since 2005, Wansink has served as a professor in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University and is director of its Food and Brand Lab, where much of his research has taken place. His earlier career included academic stints at Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

In 2007, Wansink took a leave of absence from Cornell to serve as the executive director of USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Since returning to his academic role at Cornell, he has been the driving force behind the grant-funded SmarterLunch Rooms Initiative and the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs. Both programs are devoted to funding and applying research concerning children’s health to the cafeteria environment.

FM recently interviewed Dr. Wansink, to discuss his research and what it can tell us about eating behavior in a variety of onsite dining environments. Here are some key excerpts (you can read the full version of the interview at food-management.com):

How did you first get interested in the science of eating behavior?

Wansink: Oddly enough, it was probably because of Herbert Hoover. Every state has its favorite sons, and if you are from Iowa, John Wayne and Hoover are top choices. Growing up, we heard a lot about everything Hoover did to address the problem of hunger in tough economic times. My Dad had been a baker and was laid off in the mid-60s, and the importance of food’s role in our economy just sort of struck home for me when I was at an impressionable age.

My original academic work at Stanford was about consumer behavior as it relates to food. My master’s degree was in Journalism and Mass Communications. Originally, I wanted to be a food writer. I thought I could change people’s eating behavior by writing about food.

These days, I consider myself a behavioral engineer. I look for real problems and to solve them by looking for principled solutions that will work in multiple contexts. “Behavioral Economics” is a good term and the idea is that psychology plays a role in consumption decisions, whether in how much you pay for a car or how much of a Slurpee you want to drink.

On the Hoover thing, here’s a true story. When Nancy Johner [in 2007, USDA Under Secretary] interviewed me for the job heading up USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion [a sister agency to USDA’s department for Food and Nutrition Services (FNS)], I had extensively prepared for that interview in advance, mapping out the most likely questions I’d be asked and how I’d answer them. At the meeting, with her and several aides, I quickly found that they didn’t want to know anything about my background or vita, they’d already researched that.

What they asked were questions like, “If your view on a particular issue was different than that of the administration’s policy, how would you handle it? And I was ready with my answers. But then Nancy Johner asked a question I had not prepared for. She asked, “Why do you want this job?” 

I fumbled for a minute and then found myself saying, “I’m from Iowa, and from the time I was a little boy, Herbert Hoover has been my hero. I proposed to my wife at his birthplace and went to Stanford because it was his alma mater. And if I could have only a fraction of the impact he had on the health of the country, I would be the happiest guy in the world.”

I think my voice was cracking at that point, it was just an emotional response. Her aides were looking at me with pained expressions, but I looked at her and she was nodding and said, ‘I’ve heard enough. If your background check comes through, the next call you’ll get will be from us asking, ‘When can you start?’” So that was the right answer for her.

In your view, what is the best public policy approach if we want to improve eating behaviors?

Wansink: There are some who think that regulation is the answer to everything in the world and that is just the opposite of how I see it. Over regulation would destroy so much. If you don’t have a creative, behavioral solution for something, the easiest thing to do is to take it away or tax it. That is the tremendous danger of regulation. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I’ll give you a contrasting approach. The New York Department of Health called me for advice on a program to increase whole fruit sales in school cafeterias. I was asked, “How much do schools need to subsidize fruit prices in a school cafeteria for sales to increase five percent? ‘ I told them that was the wrong question to ask—that they could make the fruit free and consumption might not increase five percent. Instead, I said they needed to look at how fruit was displayed and merchandised on the cafeteria lines.

We looked at that and recommended that they buy big, colorful bowls to display the fruit and that they place it in the best-lit part of the line. Sales at the schools in question immediately went up 187 percent and after a month stabilized at a 105 percent increase. We had doubled sales for only $25-30 a school.

What does your research suggest about the right way to portion food for healthier meals?

Wansink: At Wharton, we did a lot of research that showed the larger the package size, the more people ate; and that the smaller the package size, the less people ate. We also found that many people were willing to pay more for food offered in smaller sizes because it helps them manage their eating behavior more effectively. We showed that research to a number of manufacturers, and most had a hard time getting their heads around the idea then. Later, it became a strategy several have embraced.