Fresh Healthy Vending Machine

With the present concerns on obesity, Dr. Barry Shapiro, who specializes in treating obese children, told 60 Minutes, “A child who is obese at age 6 has a 50 percent chance of being an obese adult. A teen-ager who is obese has a 70 to 80 percent chance of being an obese adult.” With this statement, it is vital that children can learn to eat nutritious foods while they’re still young to avoid every possibility of becoming obese. Obesity can lead to death from heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and type II diabetes.

Most obese and overweight teen-agers are pretty much aware of the causes and effects of obesity. Some of them strive hard to lose weight by eating the right kind of food but with French fries, pizza and ice cream served in their school’s cafeteria, it is difficult for them not to be tempted.

“When I lose a little more weight, I think I’ll probably start feeling better around people and stuff” says Wendy, one of the teenage girls that was interviewed by Mimi Nichter, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona and author of Fat Talk: What Girls and Their Parents Say About Dieting (Harvard, 2000). In her study, Nichter found out that overweight girls are having a hard time accomplishing their desire to be thin when tempting “junk foods” are always made available. Furthermore, she wrote in her book that several girls would like to eat better foods at school but the healthier foods like salads were more expensive than the high-fat foods like pizza and French fries. Girls hoped that their school cafeteria would also serve affordable foods that are nutritious instead of those fatty meals that are served every day. Some kids also mentioned that most bad foods taste much better than good foods. This could be some of the reasons of the increasing number of obese kids every year.

Without doubt, today’s children live in an obese-friendly environment where a variety of high-fat foods are served anywhere they go. These kids deserve nutritious foods that are also affordable and tasty. This can only be possible if fresh healthy vending is within their reach. Lots of kids want to be healthy. They need the kind of foods that only fresh healthy vending provides.

School administrators, teachers and parents play an important role towards helping kids fight against obesity. It’s time that they should help promote healthy eating through fresh healthy vending.

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Childhood obesity is growing daily in the United States because children are consuming too much food and drinks that are high in calories and sugar. According the July report of the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of overweight children in the US is increasing. Fifteen percent of children ages 6 to 18 were overweight in 2000, up from 6% in 1980. Fifteen percent of youngsters ages 6 to 19 and 10 percent of children ages 2 through 5 were considered seriously overweight.

To address this present problem on obesity, First Lady Michelle Obama started her “Let’s Move” health program that intends to combat childhood obesity in the U.S. This program has four core plans: better nutrition information, increased physical activity, easier access to healthy foods and personal responsibility. Michelle Obama also encouraged food manufacturers to produce quality products that provide proper nutrition instead of producing junk foods and high-calorie snacks. She stated further that this health project requires not just the administration but also the congress, the governors, the mayors, the parents and the teachers to work together.

The First Lady says there is a lack of accessibility and affordability as there are many Americans who reside in “nutritional wastelands” found in urban and rural areas with no access to supermarkets. She considers lack of access to proper nutrition as one of the reasons why many children are not eating the recommended levels of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. But how could this happen, when there are numerous vending machines in schools and public places that are very accessible to everyone?

With this health care program, maybe it’s time that schools should replace those “junk food” vending machines with fresh healthy vending that provides a variety of high quality but affordable foods that are also rich with vitamins and minerals. If fresh vending Machines are made available in campuses and other public places, children will be provided with ONLY healthy food options. Having fresh healthy vending Machines around will solve the problem on lack of accessibility and affordability to buy nutritious foods, which is one of the main concerns in Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” health program.

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According to Phyllis Schlafly in her article, “Fat Kids: Who’s Responsible,” Eleven percent of American children and adolescents are obese, and one in three is overweight. These kids will face a costly future as obese adults, plagued by heart disease, high cholesterol levels, several types of cancer, and type II diabetes.

With today’s overwhelming innovations in technology that introduced not just digital televisions and access to world-wide channels, but also computers, movies, video games and high-tech mobile phones, most kids are no longer motivated to go out, do exercise or play active sports with their friends. Kids are now becoming couch potatoes who are stuck in front of their TVs or computers, eating high-calorie snacks and drinking sodas that can quickly pack on the pounds. When these kids go to school, vending machines that emit nothing but junk foods are accessible everywhere they go; thus, these kids can easily gain weight and become obese.

Phyllis stated that nine out of ten US schools are now selling sodas and junk foods as alternative to school lunches. In a study of the Minneapolis St. Paul area schools, published in the American Journal of Public Health, it was revealed that students ate fewer fruits and vegetables and consumed more calories from fat and saturated fat from these kinds of food. These foods are undoubtedly are big money makers and schools benefit from the profit. Sodas from vending machines are sold in at least 60 percent of all middle schools and high schools.

These present situations just paved way to an obese-friendly environment that will surely become an “obese-filled” community if schools and parents won’t take serious actions against unhealthy foods sold at schools. According to Phyllis, there are some local campaigns that are beginning to take unhealthy foods out of schools. Palm Beach County Florida has inaugurated a program called Fresh-2-U that encourages students to try 20 different fresh fruits and vegetables during the school year.

In addition to this, having fresh vending Machines in schools that sell nothing but healthy products like healthy yogurts, smoothies, fresh juices, fresh fruits, natural drinks and fresh healthy snacks can also be a good start towards proper nutrition. Moreover, establishing exercise programs or indulging kids to active sports, games and recreational activities can surely eradicate the risk of becoming overweight or obese.

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Children love to snack. Candies, crackers, pretzels, desserts, sweet drinks and other salty foods are among the most popular foods between meals. According to study, children in the United States snack almost 3 times a day and get 27% of their daily calories from salty, fatty and sugary treats. The number of kids who snacks has also increased from 1997 to 2006. Carmen Piernas, a researcher at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in her study, revealed that in 1977, only 74% of children said they snacked while in 2006, 98% of children said they ate between meals. She also mentioned that children increased their daily energy intake from snacks by 168 calories a day, with a gain of 182 calories in children ages 2 to 6. The growth revealed in her study showed no change in the trend toward more snacking among children.

Vending machines in schools provide kids with ready snacks that mostly have no nutritional value. According to report, most schools have no nutritional standard in terms of food choices sold in those vending machines. “Children have replaced milk, which contains calcium and nutrients necessary for proper growth, with sugar-packed fruit juices and high-calorie sports drinks,” the authors of the North Carolina study said. They also added that diets of unhealthy foods may lead to poor school performance, iron deficiencies and a delay in physical development.

Vending Machines provide schools with financial assistance through its revenue but Nicole Larson, one of the authors at the Department of Food and Science said that according to their study, there was no evidence that improving the nutritional quality of competitive food restricting certain food or beverages hurts school revenue. Their research was based from a two-year study of the reduced number of overweight elementary students after removing certain foods that didn’t meet the nutritional guidelines of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The number of overweight children decreased by 10.3% in the intervention schools and increased by 25.9% in the control schools after two years of study.

Since kids snack constantly, the best option to prevent obesity is to provide them with healthy snack options that are offered by fresh healthy vending. Fresh healthy vending provides only healthy food choices that give no room for high-fat snacks and sugary treats. Schools should promote eating healthier foods instead of junk foods.

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Vending machines in schools are in, and their popularity continues to rise especially among kids who prefer to buy ready snacks from those machines that vend nothing but junk foods—sodas, juices, chips, name it, most of the choices are high in carbs or fat. As a result, kids develop poor diet that may lead to being overweight, obese or at risk for chronic health problems such as diabetes and coronary artery diseases.

According to the nationwide survey of vending machines in middle schools and high schools done by the Center of Science in the Public Interest or CSPI, 75% of the drinks and 85% of the snacks sold in 1,420 vending machines that they surveyed are high in calories and are poor of nutritional value. Among the kids who participated in the survey, 71% bought sugar-sweetened sodas or other beverages, 68% bought one to three vending machine items and 79% of 141 students bought four or more. In 2004, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) reported that there were 9,723 snack slots in all the vending machines they surveyed but there were only 26 of them that contained fruits or vegetables.

There is no doubt that vending machines are great to have in schools since they provide a faster and a more convenient way to buy food. But if these machines just emit poor quality and unhealthy foods, they can be detrimental to everyone’s health, especially among school children. But why do schools allow such “Junk Food” vending machines to operate?

According to R. Lipman, in his article, “Vending machines in School,” about half of the nation’s school districts have contracts with soft drink companies to help fund extracurricular activities. They receive hundreds of thousands of dollars up front from large corporations just to sign an exclusive contract with a company. He added that a school in Michigan is reported to have made $50,000 from sales of vending machines in just a few months. There are also some high schools in Arizona that made $2000 a month from soft drink sales.

Certainly, vending machines can benefit the school but with the unhealthy foods that these machines presently sell, they can also make kids fat and prone to diseases. The only solution to this problem is to sell healthy foods direct from fresh vending. Fresh vending offers a variety of healthy food choices—from fresh juices, smoothies to yogurts and snacks that will surely satisfy everyone’s hunger and thirsts.

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