Serving vegetables first: A strategy to increase vegetable consumption in elementary school cafeterias.

Vegetable consumption in the United States is low despite the wealth of evidence that vegetables play an important role in reducing risk of various chronic diseases. Because eating patterns developed in childhood continue through adulthood, we need to form healthy eating habits in children. The objective of this study was to determine if offering vegetables before other meal components would increase the overall consumption of vegetables at school lunch. We served kindergarten through fifth-grade students a small portion (26-33 g) of a raw vegetable (red and yellow bell peppers) while they waited in line to receive the rest of their lunch meal. They then had the options to take more of the bell peppers, a different vegetable, or no vegetable from the lunch line. We measured the amount of each vegetable consumed by each child. Serving vegetables first greatly increased the number of students eating vegetables. On intervention days most of the vegetables consumed came from the vegetables-first portions. Total vegetable intake per student eating lunch was low because most students chose to not eat vegetables, but the intervention significantly increased this value. Serving vegetables first is a viable strategy to increase vegetable consumption in elementary schools. Long-term implementation of this strategy may have an important impact on healthy eating habits, vegetable consumption, and the health consequences of vegetable intake.

Evaluation of formats for aircraft control/display units.

Control/display unit (CDU) technology has been advancing more rapidly than the human factors research needed to establish guidelines for the design of display formats. Such guidelines must be established and followed to ensure effective and efficient human performance in the cockpit environment. A preliminary study which addressed the issue of defining an optimal CDU display format design was completed. Subjects were asked to search visually alphanumeric displays for a single piece of information and indicate when it was found. Data were collected on the elapsed time to isolate the information as well as the accuracy of the information retrieval. Ten formats of two information densities each were evaluated. Each format contained labels and associated data for typical flight information such as communications data (radio type and frequency) and navigation data (waypoint identifier, longitude and latitude). The ten basic format designs were developed by changing the location relationship between the labels and their associated data. Data were collected while subjects did and did not perform a two-dimensional tracking task. Preliminary findings indicate that both format design and density affect operator response time and response accuracy. Implications of the results for the design of cockpit displays are discussed.

Response to partial selection on clean fleece weight in south Australian strong-wool Merino sheep. III. Genetic distance between flocks.

Divergence over time in flocks selected for clean fleece weight and for fecundity is measured by gene frequency changes at the R-r-i blood group, haemoglobin, and transferrin loci. No unequivocal effect of selection is demonstrable. Problems of interpretation even in flocks of known history are discussed.