Fruits and Veggies in Vending Machines Tackle Childhood Obesity

by Francis P. Koster, Ed.D.

One-third of America's 55 million school children are either overweight or obese.¹ The implications are downright frightening.  Think about this: one in four American young people seeking to join the military are rejected because they are overweight or obese!² 

Carrying extra pounds leads to early heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, asthma, and sleep apnea.³ Children who are obese are much more likely to be obese, and chronically ill, adults.

The extra medical costs to our country for overweight and obese patients alone averages out to $1000 per year per American household - half of which is paid for by American taxpayers through Medicare, the VA health system, Medicaid, and government employee health plans.⁶  This is not a "personal matter" - it impacts us all.   And while some of those carrying extra pounds have an inherited or biological cause for weight gain which they have to struggle against all their lives, many others simply eat too much and exercise to little.

Unlike terrorism, or issues with imported oil, this damage to our nation is not inflicted on us by outsiders. We are doing it to ourselves, and we can fix it ourselves. 

Sugary drinks represent the largest source of added sugar in the diets of children in the U.S.⁹  Just one can of soda contains the equivalent of 14 of those paper packets of sugar you put in your morning coffee.¹⁰   

Start buying one soda per day from a vending machine at the start of your freshman year in high school, and by graduation you will have gained 48 pounds from the soda alone. (You might want to show this column to any young people you care about).

Next time you are walking behind a big behind at the county fair, note the drink they are carrying.  Chances are it is not water.  

One emerging way to provide healthier options for school children is through the latest generation vending machines that are equipped to provide healthy snacks, rather than just sugar laden soda. Adel-De Soto-Minburn Middle School in Adel, Iowa offers students healthier snack options through touch screen vending machines.¹³  The choices provided by this campus have become popular with the students, and the inclusion of vending machines that offer food and drinks other than high calorie, sugary options is a great way to encourage healthier diets.   

By using new technology which allows for a broad range of healthy food, the vendors can accommodate more health-conscious choices.¹⁷  The machine used in the Iowa school is a dual temperature machine that preserves fresh fruits and vegetables.  Nutrition facts for the items can be viewed via the machine’s touch screen. This helps students learn the nutritional content of their food purchase.  

Financing plans are available through the vendors, repaid out of the sales from the machine, so school systems’ lack of capital dollars is not a barrier. 

As my colleague Mary Beth Dial discovered when preparing a longer story on this topic for The Optimistic Futurist website, vendors still like to sell candy and chips because of their long shelf life and low cost.  This is one of those cases where the best profit interests of the vender and the best health interests of the customer are not aligned.   Still, the vendors must, in the long run, respond to consumer demand; if we demand fresh healthy snacks in vending machines, they will comply. 

Obesity does not have to affect so many children in America.  Efforts by citizens insisting on these new vending machines in appropriate public spaces tackle childhood obesity head on. By offering healthier food choices while educating children about nutritional values, we can help them begin to develop healthier eating habits that will allow them to grow into healthier adults with less risk of an early death - all while saving taxpayers money.  

We can be optimistic about our future if we imitate proven success invented by others - it just takes the initiative and courage to adopt new behaviors, and to encourage others to do the same.  I challenge you to begin - for the sake of our kids, our taxpayers, and our country.  

Francis Koster got his doctorate at the Program for the Study of the Future at the University of Massachusetts. You can find more information and read other success stories at his website, TheOptimisticFuturist.org. Email: Fran@FrancisKoster.com. 
 

To assist the Editor in Fact Checking:

(note that the endnotes are not sequential, as this was edited from a longer piece)

1 http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Overweight-in-Children_UCM_304054_Article.jsp

² Unfit for Service: The Implications of Rising Obesity for U.S. Military ...

ftp.iza.org/dp5822.pdf, page 4 

³ http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/basics.html ⁱ

⁶ The most definitive estimate was made in 1995 by The Centers for Disease Control in 1998, which arrived at an estimate of 9.1 %. This can be found at www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/economic _consequences.htm. Since that time various studies have updated that original work, and the percentage stays about the same, although national healthcare spending has risen between 6 and 8 % per year compounded over the intervening 18 years. For this purpose I used 9% of the 2007 National Coalition on Health Care estimate of national health expenditures of $2.7 trillion, which can be found at www.nchc.org /facts/costs.shtml.

By the way, this comes out to about $1,000 per U. S. Household just to pay for overweight and obese patients. Since about half of all national healthcare expenditures are made by either Medicare or Medicaid, the total tax bill for this allocated over all US households results in an average expenditure per household of about $500 per year to subsidize the healthcare of overweight patients. 

⁹ http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/problem.html 

¹⁰

Beverage	Grams of Sugar in 12 oz. can	Packets of sugar
Coke	39	14
Pepsi	41	14
Root Beer	46	16
Lemon Lime	39	14
Grape	54	19
Orange	47	17
Cheer Wine	42	15

¹³ http://www.nccor.org/newsletters/enewsletter_2011_march.html#news_2

¹⁷ http://www.wittern.com/Circle_of_Services/Financing/index.asp