Healthy vending machines will help stem the rise in obesity

Sean Parnell
AUGUST 07, 2015
THE AUSTRALIAN
A vending machine full of healthy options at Sydney University. Picture: John Appleyard Source: News Corp Australia
There’s fast food and there’s convenience food, and vending machines with all their chips and chocolate and soft drinks. If home is where the heart is, then away must be where the heart disease is. But being on the go doesn’t mean your diet has to suffer.
A survey at a university campus and a public hospital — where there are vending machines aplenty — has found Australians want healthier snacks. Of the 240 people surveyed by the University of Sydney, 87 per cent found the existing vending machine range too unhealthy. Interestingly, 80 per cent would pay the same or even more for healthier options. “We know that around one-third of our daily calorie intake comes from snacking and with the busy lifestyles that we all lead, healthy eating often falls victim to convenience,” says researcher Vicki Flood. The university is trialling nutritious options, including fresh fruit, vegetables, yoghurt, nuts and tuna. Schools are under pressure from parents to offer healthier canteen menus and banish old-school vending machines. While some believe kids will obtain junk food wherever they can, there is evidence of a shift in consumer thinking. Cancer Council Queensland’s Katie Clift says weight concerns are leading more people to seek out healthier snacks. “Chocolates, chips, cakes, cereal bars and muffins are laden with unhealthy ingredients that weigh heavy on the waistline,” Clift says. “We recommend nude food — unprocessed snacks such as fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and legumes.” Queensland’s Smart Choices strategy is praised in a World Cancer Research Fund International policy brief for its success in reducing the availability of sugar-laden foods. “The sugar challenge is a global challenge,” says Clift. “Globally, rates of obesity have reached epidemic proportions and we need to work together to reverse this.”
Obesity is increasing in many countries in step with increased supplies of food energy. Researchers in New Zealand and the US analysed food energy supply and obesity. Both increased in 56 out of 69 countries, crossing all income bands, between 1971 and 2010. The study in Bulletin of the World Health Organisation says in 65 per cent of countries, the increase in calories explains the concurrent increase in body weight. “Increased urbanisation, car dependence and sedentary occupations also contributed to the global obesity epidemic,” says Stefanie Vandevijvere from the University of Auckland. “Oversupply of available calories is a likely driver of overconsumption of those calories and can readily explain the weight gain.”
Restricting access to junk food and making vending machines more healthy is one thing, but encouraging consumers to make healthier choices is complicated. Take teenage boys, for example, who are likelier to be overweight or obese. Data from the National Secondary Students’ Diet and Activity Survey reveals that compared with girls, boys are likelier to be regular consumers of fast food (46 per cent compared to 34 per cent) and sugary drinks (28 per cent compared with 14 per cent). Boys consume salty snacks and fried potato products more often, and also ice blocks, and are likelier to be influenced by multimedia marketing techniques that involve giveaways, competitions, movies or sports personalities. “A barrage of increasingly sophisticated junk food marketing is undermining teenage boys’ longer-term health, highlighting the urgent need for measures to protect them,” says the Cancer Council’s Kathy Chapman.
Watch your weight but maybe don’t stress about it. Swiss scientists did a little study to examine how stress altered the brain to impair self-control and reported their findings in the journal Neuron this week. They had 29 participants undergo a stressful exercise, and left another 22 unstressed. When the participants were later asked to choose between two food options, those who had experienced stress were likelier to opt for unhealthy foods.