What if life came with little reminders to make healthy choices?

That was the question John Bellettiere and colleagues at San Diego State University tried to answer in a recent Journal of Primary Prevention article. Bellettiere and his team focused on a stairway and escalator in Terminal 1 of San Diego International Airport and watched as, for ten non-consecutive days, passersby chose to take either the stairs or escalator, which are side-by-side in the terminal.

To see if a small nudge could convince people to make a healthier choice, Bellettiere and colleagues drafted five signs that they placed at the bottom of the stair-escalator combo each of the study days. The signs were all similar in nature, reading “Don’t lose time, lost weight. Use the stairs”, “Please reserve the escalator for those who need it” and “You’ll get more stares if you use the stairs.”

The researchers analyzed pedestrians’ choices both with and without the signs on separate days and found that around twice as many people took the stairs when the signs were posted.

“We saw the effect even when people were carrying luggage, even when they were in a rush,” Bellettiere said in a release from SDSU. “It’s the first time this kind of effect has been shown at an airport.”

Read SDSU’s full news story here: