A study of families with children ages 2 to 5 found pre-loaded items for healthy recipes led to healthier choices.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A new study from the University at Buffalo shows that families make healthier choices when nutritious food is pre-loaded into their online carts.

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This study was just published last month, and many of the families live right here in Western New York. It shows how technology can be used to make healthier choices.

“The idea was to try to make the healthy choice a default, not something that you had to go out of your way to figure out and do,” said Stephanie Anzman-Frasca, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University at Buffalo.

The study used Instacart to see if healthier choices could be more automatic. Sixty-nine families with two to five-year-olds took part. Each had one parent who was overweight. Instacart helped fund the study, but the families paid for their own groceries.

“They got a bundle of three main meal recipes, plus an idea of how they could use leftovers from the recipes to make something like a breakfast, lunch, or snack. So it was essentially a bundle of four recipes, and we decided that because we have some data suggesting that’s how often the average family cooks meals at home,” Anzman-Frasca said.

Stephanie Anzman-Frasca is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University at Buffalo and authored the paper on the study.

“Half of them were assigned to receive healthy recipes, the other half got the recipes and then we put the ingredients for those recipes right in their Instacart online carts, which they could change if they wanted to,” Anzman-Frasca said.

The recipes met specific nutritional and cost criteria.

“We found that the families that got the pre-loaded carts increased the nutritional quality of their grocery purchases compared to the group that only got the recipes, suggesting that it was helpful to put the ingredients in their cart, and again, try to make it easier for them to say yes,” Anzman-Frasca said.

In future research, they might find out what kinds of food the families like so they can make healthier versions of those meals using the online cart.

“It’s totally normal for a 2 to 5-year-old to be a picky eater, but we were excited to see that this approach still worked because, you know, families with a 2 to 5-year-old might be more hesitant to try new recipes if their child might reject them, so we’re encouraged that this approach can even work with this age group that could benefit from exposure to healthy foods,” Anzman-Frasca said.

This is the first time this type of study was done with families with young children where they actually bought groceries and made healthy meals.