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Google Science

Google Experimented on Its Own Employees To Get Them To Eat Healthier (medium.com) 156

Posted by EditorDavid from the I'm-feeling-healthy dept.
This week Medium's tech blog OneZero published a 4,500-word look at Google's "methodical, iterative" and massive "living experiment" on its own employees to see if they can nudge them into making healthier choices when they eat: The campaign isn't changing just the food itself, but how it's presented. Google's tactics include limiting portion sizes for meat and desserts and redesigning its premises to lead its "users" to choose water and fruit over soda and M&M's. The goal, says Michiel Bakker, Google's director of global workplace programs, is to make the healthy choice the easy choice...

[T]he small changes make big differences. The plates on the buffet line are only eight to 10 inches wide, versus a standard 12 inches, which effectively limits serving sizes. Vegetables always come first on the line, so by the time you get to the meat or the snickerdoodles and chocolate tarts, there's not much space on your plate. "Spa water," bobbing with strawberries or cucumbers or lemons, is everywhere -- and deliberately more accessible than sugary drinks or even bottled water. A burrito at Google weighed in at about 10 ounces -- 60% smaller than the whopping one-pound nine-ounce log filled with similar ingredients that I picked up at a Chipotle near my home in Washington, D.C....

"Early choice architecture focused specifically on the process," said Ravi Dhar, a professor at Yale and the director of the school's Center for Customer Insights, which partners with Google on food research. "You didn't change the set of alternatives, but you rearranged them." So, if the goal was to get people to eat more vegetables, you would make the salad bar the first thing people see in a cafeteria -- hungry people usually grab the first food they see -- and leave it at that. But it turns out that's not enough. You also have to make the vegetables more abundant and more compelling -- and do the opposite for meat.
For example, moving the snacks table 10 feet further from the coffee machine reduced the likelihood of snacking by as much as 23% for men and 17% for women. But "Since then, Google has remade its 1,450 microkitchens. The unhealthy snacks -- now limited for the most part to M&M's and gummy bears -- are well away from the coffee machine, hidden in opaque canisters or in a drawer.

"At the same time, a big bowl of fresh fruit sits alluringly in the center of the counter nearest the coffee machine..."
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Google Experimented on Its Own Employees To Get Them To Eat Healthier More

Google Experimented on Its Own Employees To Get Them To Eat Healthier

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  • But how accessible the Flavor Aid (aka Kool-Aid) is.

    Is this the same group of programmers who are micro-dosing to "focus"?

  • Don't drink the Kool-Aid (but I hear the green Spirulina smoothie is damn fine).

  • Wait-wait-wait ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by psergiu ( 67614 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @10:06AM (#59707390)

    We're talking here about the FREE FOOD the Google is offering their employees.
    My last employer was cutting down on the FREE WATER by removing the water fountains from the building to save on the yearly recurring costs of filter replacements.
    I would be thrilled if my employer would give me free healthy food and snacks.

  • The road to hell... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @10:21AM (#59707406) Journal

    ...is paved with good intentions.

    My gut reaction to this was discomfort. I don't like the idea of being manipulated even when it's for my own benefit (ask my wife).

    But at least with my wife, I know her priorities are mine: our kids, our collective well-being, etc. I can accept manipulation on those terms, from someone I've been with for 35 years. I trust her with everything, including me.

    I will NOT concede that to a goddamned government. I absolutely will not accept that from a cadre of non-elected fucks whose sole 'qualification' is their certainty that they are smarter than everyone else.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      I will NOT concede that to a goddamned government. I absolutely will not accept that from a cadre of non-elected fucks whose sole 'qualification' is their certainty that they are smarter than everyone else.

      Bwahahaha! I cannot believe that you wrote that with a straight face. You, my friend, are a master.

      Trying to make us believe that you're immune from paying taxes (government manipulation through credits and differential rates), media (non-elected 'fucks' advertising to you), and commerce (shopping, the v

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by MTEK ( 2826397 )

      My gut reaction to this was discomfort.

      Sedentary people with poor eating habits are driving up healthcare costs. I say treat 'em like the big babies they are-- hide their free candy.

      • Instead of doing that, how about :: I cannot in good conscience, put out free foods that have more artificial chemicals than they do nutrients. I dont care if someone consumes them, only that I contributed to it. Therefore these items will only be available in the vending machines. Instead we will stock the break room with assorted fresh fruit, nuts, and carrot sticks ::

        That comes across a lot a lot better than a contrived goal of being a nagging nanny like Bloomberg.

    • Don't eat their free food.

    • The food is put on display by someone. Whoever does this makes you consume the products based on their agenda. Google just tries to present the products with health in mind.

      You realize the selection is already a forced choice upon you? If M&Mâ(TM)s are on bottom shelf that is reduction on their appeal. There is no way to make any display without skewing your subconsious mind towards something. Maybe you saw Snickers ad during superbowl and now you have increased chance of consuming that chocolate b

      • The food is put on display by someone. Whoever does this makes you consume the products based on their agenda.

        Words, they're what's for dinner.

    • If you can see the "road to hell" in this story, you are experiencing a mental health emergency. Please see your doctor.

      Google is not the government. Take your medication.

    • I absolutely will not accept that from a cadre of non-elected...

      So it's better to be controlled by people who have been elected?

  • Not unusual (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @11:00AM (#59707516)

    Large companies do a lot of this type of optimization. A guy I work with used to manage a call center. He told me they ran tests changing the interior color of bathroom stalls, and found that some colors were conducive to having employees spend less time in the bathroom.

    Hell, this goes all the way back to Taylor's 'Principles of Scientific Management ' from 1911.

  • Onto their workers.

    • Because you're forced to stuff all food within reach into your cavernous maw, and you're incapable of bending over to reach the bottom shelf.

    • Onto their workers.

      Every worker in every job where they aren't completely self employed has "ideas forced" upon them. Hell I don't like the colour of the walls in my building. MUH FREEDOMS!!!!111oneoneone.

      Your comment makes you look like an idiot.

  • instead of fruit because candy keeps forever and fruit goes bad after a few days. Outside of Bananas (which are super cheap) fruit tends to be more expensive. 100 calories of M&Ms costs me about .15-.19 cents. A 100 calorie orange or apple (when not on sale) is about 50 cents where I'm at and less common stuff (pears and plumbs) pushes $1. I can get it cheaper on sale, but then it's ready for the bin in a few days if I don't eat it, which doesn't really work for table fruit.

    • I would take fruit over candy any day. Especially blueberries or sour cherries - can eat a kilo or two of them in one setting.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by samdu ( 114873 )

        A kilo of sugar (fruit is mostly sugar) is also probably the best option.

        • Fruits are actually mostly fibers and water. And pure sugar doesn't taste very well.

          • I haven't seen it for a long time, but there was a candy that consisted of nothing but large sugar crystals, called rock candy. In fact, there was a song about it called "The Big Rock Candy Mountain"

            • Yes, it is also used in Northern Germany to sweeten the quite strong black tea they drink. The only difference to the American rock candy is that it is uncoloured and usually unrefined sugar.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by deek ( 22697 )

          You realise that fruit has fibre in it, and this mitigates the fructose content in fruit by slowing its absorption into the bloodstream.

          And since you realise this, I can assume your comment was tongue in cheek.

    • What a money waster you are, you can buy a bag of sugar for a lot less.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by novakyu ( 636495 )

        But it tastes better if you add a little bit of cocoa powder to it---so, why not buy the ones that are pre-made that way?

        Tubs of lard (or vegetable shortening) is probably "most efficient" calories-to-money wise, but it doesn't taste all that good by itself.

    • If $0.30 is the difference between you eating healthy and you eating unhealthy, you need to get a better job.

      Bring a piece of fruit to work each day and eat it. Stop trying to justify your unhealthy snacking.

    • instead of fruit because candy keeps forever and fruit goes bad after a few days.

      I simply eat the food I bring to work rather than attempt a long term storage experiment, but you do you man. You think fruit is expensive, wait until you see the cost of health complications.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

      Apples can keep for a month if they're fresh when you bought it. They're super cheap. And if you think that's not enough calories, go buy some lard ($0.35 per 2,000 calories) and eat it with the apple. Lard keeps for 4-6 months. Both apples and lard will fill you up and you won't feel like eating a huge lunch or dinner. Maybe even skip one of them altogether. Save money and the waistline.

  • Mindless tech hate.. (Score:3)

    by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @01:27PM (#59707962)

    When did SlashDot become twitter.com, full of knobs just spending all day finding things to hate on Big Tech about?

    This article is fucking stupid and whoever posted it should be embarrassed, acting like it's similar to how the US government 'experimented on' the Tuskegee airmen or some shit.

    It's fucking risible. Oh no, they 'experimented on' their employees, they are real Frankensteins! I better read more! OMG they change portion sizes and ordering of the food in their cafe, those fucking inhuman monsters!!! My God, someone STOP THEM!!!!!

  • Nowhere do I read about a nutrient deficiency. People aren't dying from that, nor even suffering to any great extent. Why is then that the focus for the real issue(obesity) is rarely about kcal? Even in this experiment, they only dropped the plate sizes. They didn't do jack shit about telling people their TDEE nor what their healthy BMI range is.

    I don't get it. Weight loss is simple CICO. Not to confuse simple with easy. But its still dead simple. And not one bit of it has to come from exercise either.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      they only dropped the plate sizes

      No, they also made it more likely that less calorifically dense foods would fill those plates first, leaving less room for the higher calorie options.

      Less food per plate and less calories per plate of food means that they are indeed addressing 'kcal'.

      What's TDEE anyway? You could tell me my TDEE and it would mean fuck all because I don't know the term.

      • Total daily energy expenditure. If you know this value, and you well should, you can calculate against it. Considering everything else your body handles an excess of automatically, its rather unusual this value is so secretive.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          It's not secretive, it's just no fucking use at all.

          I don't weigh my food before eating it, I don't go through every label on the packaging adding up calorific values, I don't track number of cups of coffee I drink. My daily intake is thus at best approximate and so my energy expenditure is pretty irrelevant.

          Maybe you measure your life down to the individual joule but the rest of the planet have better things to do with their day.

  • I'm imaging some secret room where they strap employees down to tables and force feed them vegetables until they like them. It's right at home with their new motto, "Be evil".

  • Like someone already commented here ... I get really angry when I find out my government is mandating changes like this. Should be my body and my choice what foods or drinks I decide to put in it. (I don't want to find out someone like a Bloomberg outlawed my decision to buy a large soda, for example.)

    When an employer does this kind of "experimentation" -- it's really nothing more than what you encounter when interacting with businesses all day long. Go into any shopping mall, for example, and you're being

    • I bet your large soda guzzling fat-ass loves government mandates that force the rest of us to subsidize your health insurance

  • Bad snack selection (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @01:14PM (#59711772)

    For example, moving the snacks table 10 feet further from the coffee machine reduced the likelihood of snacking by as much as 23% for men and 17% for women. But "Since then, Google has remade its 1,450 microkitchens. The unhealthy snacks -- now limited for the most part to M&M's and gummy bears -- are well away from the coffee machine, hidden in opaque canisters or in a drawer.

    I mean if you are only going to have to shitty snacks like those, more people aren't going to eat them.

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