Slim By Design (2014) is a book by Brian Wansink, Ph.D., John Dyson Professor of Consumer Behavior at Cornell University, head of Cornell's Food and Brand Lab, and the author of Mindless Eating (2007)^[1]. The leading behavioral economist, food psychologist, and bestselling author introduces solutions for designing most common spaces--schools, restaurants, grocery stores, and home kitchens, among others--in order to make positive changes in how people approach and manage their diets^[2]. The way homes, schools, restaurants, workplaces, and grocery stores are set up predictably lead people to pick up cookies rather than apples. But just as they've evolved to make people overeat, there are ways that people can redesign them to their benefit^[3]. Wansink interprets his astounding findings as suggestions on what an individual can do to counter the environmental forces that influence their food choice: pay attention, use smaller plates, snack-proof our house. Moreover, he also has suggestions for actions that restaurants, supermarkets, and food makers can take to sell healthier foods and still make money^[4].

There are over 20 things that people could do to design their kitchen for fitness that would work well, but “some of the most effective tools are pretty person- (or habit-) specific,” Wansink said. The top 3 things he does regularly in the kitchen include:

1. Serving or pre-plating the main dish from the stove or counter. This cuts down how much people eat by 19%.
2. Having two or fewer cans of soft drinks in the fridge.  This slows down how much people drink because warm soft drinks aren’t as tempting.
3. Organizing kitchen counters.  This leads people to snack 44% less in the kitchen.^[5]

There are also some strategies that fast-food restaurants could do to encourage healthier eating. For example, restaurants can “make it motivating” such as (1) starting a Healthy Habits loyalty card—five punches and the sixth healthy item is free, or (2) giving 5 percent off the healthier combo version: diet versus regular, baked versus fried. Wansink says, “Give away a sixth meal? Give a 5 percent discount? On a $5 meal that’s a 25-cent loss. Think of it instead as a $4.75 gain, because diners could have easily otherwise gone somewhere else. And it’s a $9.50 gain if they brought a friend.”^[6]

Slim by Design has a 100-point scorecard that readers can use to tell if their grocery store is making them fat by design or slim by design. There’s also a 10-point version at SlimbyDesign.org that they can fill out.  Some of the items on it include:

• The grocery store has pre-printed shopping list reminders that focus on healthier foods as the default option.
• The grocery store has a fruit display within 20 feet of the door.
• The grocery store has at least one checkout line that is candy-free.^[7]

In an e-mail, Wansink writes: “My goal is for this book to ignite a Slim by Design Movement that transforms restaurants, grocery stores, workplaces, schools into healthier places that guide us to make smarter, healthier choices. The book tells people exactly what they can ask their favorite restaurant or grocery store to do, and the web site allows them to complete abbreviated scorecards and post them to Facebook and Twitter to show people there are simple, scalable, solutions that can make all of us Slim by Design.”^[8] Ok