A comprehensive study found that there is indeed a link between elementary and middle school’s vending machine content and student diet. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that schools selling primarily sweets in their vending machines contained students who consumed more sweets overall than students from schools with healthier vending machines.
Conversely, researchers found that schools selling fruits and vegetables in their vending machines contained students who consumed more produce than students from schools whose vending machines did not offer such choices.
The study examined the food sold in vending machines at 152 elementary and middle schools and the dietary behavior of 5,930 students in total. This was the first study to explore this topic using a sample size representative of the nation as a whole.
It was found that the overwhelming majority of schools - 83% - primarily sold vending machine food like sodas, chips and sweets, with little to no nutritional value. It was also found that vending machine content was more likely to influence younger children’s dietary behaviors.
According to the World Health Organization, poor dietary choices are more highly associated with mortality and account for more health care costs than smoking cigarettes and taking illegal drugs combined, Joel Fuhrman, M.D., family physician and nutritional researcher, says. Like many nutritionists, Fuhrman was particularly disturbed by these findings.
“We are supposed to be teaching proper nutrition in the schools and having a vending machine inside of the school doesn’t make sense,” Fuhrman said. “Schools are introducing foods that every nutritional scientist in the world knows are dangerous.”
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