Why do Americans eat so unhealthily?
This is the question this design intervention wishes to answer.
As more than half of meals in the US are prepared at home, I needed to look deeply into grocery stores.
Analysis of over a dozen typical American grocery store chains showed that despite concerted efforts to keep
healthy
and fresh food available, these healthy foods are dispersed among the fringes of the floor plan.
Grocers seem to consistently trap consumers by luring them into the shelf-stable aisle by burying staples
among impulse, high calorie, and processed foods.
Here, the staples can be seen intermixed with sugary, fatty, and enticing processed foods, to ensure that shoppers must filter through to find their staples. So, to maintain the general layout while making healthy shopping more accessible, the proposal is split into three scales of intervention.
The first proposed scale of intervention is at the floor plan level. Moving treats and processed foods to one side
of the store allows shoppers to more intentionally choose where and how much to purchase from the treats zone.
The next proposed scale of intervention is at the level of the shelf. Moving healthier options of choices such as
cereal towards eye level makes them both more appealing and noticeable to the eyes of everyday shopper.
A final and more impactful level of intervention is at the scale of the packaging. With the help of regulation or
industry pressure, an overhaul of the packaging could apply colorscale as an indicator of nutritional value of the
product. Informing and potentially pressuring shoppers in a way that is often minimized in the current grocery
store
setting.