Campus vending machines might be quick and convenient, but researchers from the agriculture and natural resources college have found that nearly 93 percent of the food available in these machines is unhealthy.
Kavitha Sankavaram, a researcher in the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, and her team studied the 20 highest revenue-generating machines on this campus in their study, “What’s in a Snack?”
“Most college-going students are obese or prone to obesity,” Sankavaram said. “We wanted to see why there is an increase in college students growing overweight. There is increasing concern on how vending machines are contributing to obesity.”
For the study, the researchers analyzed the snacks found in vending machines in highly trafficked parts of this campus, such as Stamp Student Union and McKeldin Library. They used two tools to determine healthiness. One tool, Nutrition Environment Measurements Survey-Vending, analyzed products based on total calories, calories from fat, saturated fats, trans fats, sugar and sodium. The other tool, the Health Density Vending Machine Audit Tool, considered fiber, calcium, iron, potassium and vitamins C, D and E as parameters.
Of 49 varieties of snacks sold, the NEMS-V tool found that between 93 and 100 percent in each studied machine were considered unhealthy — including the top 12 most popular snacks, according to researchers. Top snacks included chips, chocolate bars and beverages.
About 77 percent of buildings on this campus are within a half-mile of a food source other than a vending machine but are not accessible after regular business hours, according to the researchers’ findings. But 89 percent of buildings do not have access to other food sources within a half-mile after 6 p.m.
Jared Ebrahimoff, a junior criminology and criminal justice major, said that he usually looks for a vending machine when there is no food establishment nearby.
“I usually buy a bag of chips, pretzels or a bar of chocolate,” he said.
Vending machine snacks — typically chips, pretzels, chocolate, granola, trail mixes, sodas and juices — might fill one up, but Sankavaram said they’re not nutritionally beneficial. These snack packages also often contain more than one serving.
Mira Mehta, director of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program and one of the study’s researchers, said it’s inevitable that students will grab snacks from a vending machine when they’re rushing from one class to the next. The only way to mitigate this, Mehta said, is to provide healthier options in the machines.
“Most of these vending machine options were unhealthy,” Mehta said. “So people are relying on these not just as a small snack, but many of the people buying food from vending machines are using the food as meal replacements.”
Mehta suggested people who frequently make use of vending machines instead bring easily packable snacks such as fruit or yogurt.
The study’s researchers recommended that stakeholders should be encouraged to adopt and enforce healthier vending policies.
The Food and Drug Administration ruled in November that vendors who own and operate more than 20 vending machines must ensure that accurate and clear caloric information must be declared on the food packages so consumers can make informed dietary choices.
While there are stringent rules in middle schools and high schools regarding what kind of food can be sold in vending machines, universities and other public places have no such laws, Sankavaram said.
