Using mobile texting and MMS to encourage habitual consumption of vegetables in Stanford undergraduate students.

1. Veggi
n’
habits.stanford.edu
Tanya Flores
June 3, 2010

2. Encourage
Goal:
Stanford
undergraduate
students to order
vegetables during
their dinner
through the use of
MMS and text
messaging
habits.stanford.edu

3. Routine:
Follow-up the next
morning with an email,
Let them know what letting them know who’s
vegetables are available at “wining” the challenge
their regular dining hall!
Ask them whether they
ordered the vegetable!
9:00 AM next morning
5:00 PM 8:00 PM
habits.stanford.edu

4. Results of ordering:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Daniel
Tiq
Gilberto
Erika
Elizabeth
Replied saying they Replied saying they did Did not
ordered the vegetable not order the vegetable reply
habits.stanford.edu

5. Results of eating:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Daniel
Tiq
Gilberto
Erika
Elizabeth
Did not
Ate vegetables Did not eat vegetables
reply habits.stanford.edu

6. What worked?
Just in time triggers
“It definitely helped that you sent the messages
right before I entered the dining hall.”
“Sometimes I would see them, but not clear
them so then it was like a 2nd alarm to order
the eggplant.”
“If I liked the vegetables I ate them because it
was there, but the days they served bad stuff it
just took up space on my plate”
habits.stanford.edu

7. What did not work?
Emails did not provide
social pressure! They
generally did not care about
the morning emails.
“The only reason I didn’t do it was because I
didn’t have room on my plate. There was no
reason not to. It was free.”
habits.stanford.edu

8. Next time:
Answering system
Points system? If Physical triggers in
through a different
there is a “winner” the dining hall? For
media - twitter or
would that have those that forget
facebook - so that
driven more the moment they
they could reply to
motivation? read the MMS/SMS
each other?
habits.stanford.edu

9. Are you veggin’?
habits.stanford.edu