Dietary Habits Field Experiment with 285 Low-Income Families

Michèle Bélot from the University of Oxford conducted a 12-week field experiment with 285 low-income families to evaluate the malleability of dietary habits in children and adults. Families were assigned to a control group or one of two treatments targeting meal content or meal timing and frequency. The study collected measures of food preferences, dietary intake, BMI, and biomarkers.

Use Cases

• Analyze the effect of free healthy groceries on children's BMI based on the treatment described
• Evaluate the impact of reducing snacking and regular meal timing on food preferences based on the collected measures
• Compare treatment effects between children and parents based on the findings mentioned in the description

Strengths

• Data was collected from a field experiment with 285 low-income families, providing a specific sample size
• The study includes a range of measures including BMI and biomarkers from blood samples
• The experiment involved two distinct 12-week treatments and a control group

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data may reflect temporal and demographic bias inherent to a single field experiment

Provenance

Source

Michèle Bélot, University of Oxford

Collection Method

Field experiment with randomized treatments and control group

Time Range

The experiment lasted for 12 consecutive weeks, but the overall study period is unknown