In 2006, Wansink published Mindless Eating. The book, stemming from 20 years of research, made revealing correlations between food consumption and food marketing and placement. It concludes that packages and containers, labels and lights, colors and shapes, distractions and distances—in short, design— influence people’s eating choices in restaurants, supermarkets, and even at home, more than they realize.

When he took a leave of absence from Cornell to serve as executive director of the US Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion in 2006, Wansink applied the same product placement methodology that companies use to sell unhealthy choices to selling healthier options in school lunchrooms. The lunchroom redesign focuses on rearranging, relocating and renaming foods with the aim of directing students to healthier choices. Changes vary from locating the vegetables to the front of the buffet line, to hiding the chocolate milk behind the skim milk, and placing ice cream in the freezer with opaque covered lids. “It has to be a low-cost, no-cost change, and no change can cost more than $50,” Wansink says. “If it costs more than $50, we go back to the drawing board.”

Plattsburgh High School in upstate New York was one of the first schools to implement cafeteria changes as part of the Healthy People 2020 Project pilot program. In December 2009, the school bought 175 fruits per month from distributors, based on demand. By March, after the changes were made, the school purchased 1067 whole fruits per month to meet the increased demand.