There is a box with bananas and apples next to the fruit department in a supermarket in Copenhagen, and every child is welcome to take them free of charge while the parents shop. It seemed like a nice marketing gesture, but after a few days in the city it became clear to me that this was not a one-time gesture. I encountered it in more than one supermarket. Instead of “choose only one candy or snack” – take fresh fruit, available and free. That’s the idea. Not a campaign to encourage a healthy diet or a special offer.
In many of the supermarkets I found a bread slicer stand for self-use, like in Israel – but with four options for the thickness of the slice. Everyone determines the thickness of the slice that suits them, without recommendations. The thinnest slice is the thickness of a slice of yellow cheese, the thinnest slice is the thickness of a cracker, the thickest slice is about the same thickness as our standard slice.
The thickness of the thin slices is very suitable for the Danish smørrebrød: an open sandwich that is usually based on a slice of dark, compressed rye bread, spread with a thin layer of butter and topped with layers of fish, egg, vegetables, spreads or meat. The smorbrod is eaten with a knife and fork, from street stalls to luxury restaurants.
This dish embodies Denmark as I was impressed by it: everyday food where simplicity, aesthetics and practicality combine easily. Its structure makes it possible to assemble an orderly meal on one slice of bread, with the nutritional composition depending, of course, on what is placed on it.
And as the days passed, more and more examples of this worldview accumulated. In Denmark there are quite a few restaurants with “all you can eat” deals. Some of them have a note that appears prominently on the menu: those who take more than what they ate and leave on the plate – will have to pay for it (and can also take dogi beg home). Again, without an explanation of why it is important not to waste food. The additional charge makes the diner think for a moment before taking a side dish.
On a larger scale, the same principle also appears in urban planning. In Copenhagen, bicycles are not sports equipment but first and foremost a means of transportation. According to the municipality of Copenhagen, about 62% of the residents who travel to work or school within the city do so by bicycle. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics of Denmark (Statistics Denmark), there are more than 4.5 million bicycles in Denmark, compared to 2.1 million cars in a population of about 6 million inhabitants.
The difference is not only due to personal preferences, but also to the way the cities are planned and the priority actually given to bicycles. Physical activity is assimilated on the way from place to place, without turning it into a workout for which you need to organize time and special clothing. How do you get to such a situation? Through a dense network of lanes for bicycles, which are sometimes given priority at the expense of reducing part of the space for cars, and at the same time a high-quality public transportation system that offers a convenient alternative to the private car.
The environment influences the choice
The question is who sets the rules, and why. The same principles used to highlight fruits and vegetables can also be used to promote sugary snacks and drinks. The planning of the environment also reflects the priorities and interests of those who determine how the choice environment will look. Precisely because of this, it is wrong to see “choice architecture” as a tool that necessarily promotes health. In supermarkets, they choose which products will be placed next to the cash register and which special offers will jump out first. It just makes one choice easier than another. In Denmark, I felt that in quite a few of the places I visited, this ease works in favor of the consumer.
In the supermarket, on the bike paths, in restaurants and other places – the choice begins not only with what the person wants but also with what the environment allows him to see and adopt easily. It’s practical planning, based on pragmatic thinking. This convenience is not presented as an educational tool – it is part of the way the day is organized.
Usually most of the nutritional discourse focuses on what is placed on the plate. In Copenhagen I found myself thinking more about what happens a few minutes before: how the environment affects the choice even before deciding what to put in the cart. Nutritional recommendations and knowledge are important tools, but they meet the person in an environment that already directs some of their decisions.
These are small steps, and some of them are not at all intended to promote health, and yet, they remind us of a principle that is easy to neglect in nutritional guidance: before asking people to make a different choice, you should check how the choice is presented to them and what is required to make it. Neither the restaurants nor the raw materials were the ones that stayed with me from the visit to Copenhagen, but rather the small choices that the environment directs without us realizing it.