Pay your kids to eat vegetables?

Study finds short-term cash incentives yield more-healthful eating habits in the long term as reported in The Wall Street Journal by Beckie Strum, Oct. 16, 2016.  "The strategy not only works in the short term, but can create healthful eating habits in children in the long run if the little bribe is carried out consistently for several weeks, according to a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Health Economics." For a year and a half, the researchers carried out a study of 8,000 children at 40 elementary schools. Students who ate at least one serving of fruit or vegetable at lunch received a 25-cent token redeemable at the school’s store, carnival or book fair. “These small incentives produced a dramatic increase in fruit and vegetable consumption during the incentive period,” the researchers wrote. “This change in behavior was sustained.”"Two months after the incentives ended, many more students than before the program started were still eating a fruit or vegetable at lunch.The effect was even greater for schools that implemented the program for five weeks." (quoting from WSJ)