Here’s a little video I made (we finally meet!) to give you a list of the ways having HUMAN’s healthy vending machines in school will make your school more money.
Child Nutrition Act: Growing Brains Need Healthy Snacks
July 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The Child Nutrition Act originally passed into law in 1966. Its goal was to provide children with a balanced diet that fulfills all of their nutrient needs without excessive caloric intake. The act established the School Breakfast Program, which now feeds more than 10 million children each day, as well as the School Lunch Program, which feeds over 30 million students each day.
The act was last renewed in 2004, and is normally re-worked and reauthorized every five years. However, last year the renewal was pushed back to September, 2010. Meetings are due to commence on July 1 regarding the Reauthorization. In preparation for these meetings, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree hosted a forum yesterday to discuss the goals of the Child Nutrition Act. Below is a video with various excerpts from the forum.
The video discusses some interesting points—including that children’s brains may not develop properly if they do not get the calories and nutrients they need during critical periods of growth. This means that when kids don’t get enough healthy food, they may not only lack focus and attention in school on that particular day, but they may actually do long-term damage by denying their brains the food it needs to grow to its full potential.
Government funding can certainly help kids by providing lunch and breakfast to students who would otherwise go without; but their jurisdiction over the specific food that is served is limited.
Schools can help, too, by placing vending machines with healthy, nourishing snacks for kids around campus. And schools can do this for free! It may not be a solution for all students; some may suffer from malnutrition because of a complete lack of funds. But having healthy vending machines in school would make a difference to those who can afford to buy food on campus, but don’t have access to the nourishing foods they need to help their brains grow strong.
Solutions to Your Top 3 Fears About Healthy School Vending Machines
June 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Fear #1 – If you put healthy snacks next to unhealthy snacks in school vending machines, kids will buy only the unhealthy snacks.
Kids, and perhaps people in general, are more likely to buy unhealthier snacks when faced with a choice between healthy and unhealthy. When a person is hungry, the body wants to get calories as fast as it can, so of course people are attracted to the salty and sugary snacks.
The solution: Find a vending machine that sells only healthy foods. When students don’t have the distraction of past go-to’s, they will make healthier decisions every time!
Fear #2 – Kids will shy away from healthy snacks because they are more expensive than traditional vending machine foods.
The Solution: If your school has a debit system, some vending machines can be programmed to accept school ID cards as a form of payment! Everyone—even kids—are more likely to buy when they don’t have to part with cash on the spot. And once parents find out about the healthy vending snacks that are available on campus, they might start giving kids extra allowance to help foster healthy eating habits!
Fear #3 – Kids don’t like health food so they will simply buy less from healthy vending machines, meaning less profit for the school.
The Solution: Find a vending machine company that has done a great deal of market research and has a wide variety of product options, and you can fill your new school vending machines with healthy foods that you already know kids will love. Add to that a clean, attractive vending machine that works to draw kids in, and the new vending machines will likely make more money than the old!
Problems solved! Healthy vending machines will not only help keep down obesity rates, but they may actually make more money for your school. Finding the right vending machine company is the key to making sure your healthy vending machines succeed!
Top 3 Fears About Switching to Healthier School Vending Machines
June 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Fear #1 – If you put healthy snacks next to unhealthy snacks in school vending machines, kids will buy only the unhealthy snacks.
Humans are beasts of familiarity, and kids additionally operate on what Freud calls the “pleasure principle” – they always want what sounds best right now. So if they are given the choice between unfamiliar healthy snacks and the tried and true calorie-rich snacks of their past, won’t they always choose the latter?
Fear #2 – Kids will shy away from healthy snacks because they are more expensive than traditional vending machine foods.
Many kids get a certain amount of money allotted to spend at school each day. Their parents might give them the cash in the morning before school, and the student then chooses how to spend it during the day. If healthy vending snacks are more expensive than the snacks they’re used to seeing, will they avoid buying because of the price?
Fear #3 – Kids don’t like health food so they will simply buy less from healthy vending machines, meaning less profit for the school.
Vending machines have become an integral part of a healthy school budget. With recent government budget cuts already plaguing schools around the country, any further decrease in income could be devastating. Is it worth taking the risk of trying a new tactic now? What if kids just don’t buy from the new vending machines?
Tune in tomorrow to see the simple solutions to each of these fears!
Top 5 Reasons to Upgrade Your School Vending Machines to HUMAN
June 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment
1. The Vending Machines You Have Now Make You Feel Bad
You know it’s true. Every time you’re hungry enough to consider buying something from one of the old, junk food vending machines that are on your campus now, you take a minute to convince yourself that you are not starving, and can wait until later to eat. Or if you do give in, you feel bad afterward. And don’t you cringe every time you see one of the impressionable youngsters at your school going for a sugary coke and bag of cookies instead of buying an apple from the cafeteria? It doesn’t have to be this way! HUMAN’s healthy vending machines are filled with nothing but healthy snacks—to foster better eating habits in students, and let you get a healthy snack when you need one!
2. HUMAN’s Healthy Vending Machines Earn Money for Your School
As a prime healthy vending location, your school has the choice of earning a percent commission on all of the snacks sold at no cost to the school, or of leasing the machines and keeping all the profits! School budgets are tighter than ever. Programs that help students succeed and keep teachers sane are getting cut left and right, with no end in sight. Which program would you bring back with the extra cash from HUMAN’s healthy vending machines?
3. HUMAN’s Healthy Vending Machines Accept School Debit and Credit Cards
If your school has a debit program for lunches and other school-day expenses, HUMAN healthy vending machines’ intelligent internal computer can be programmed to accept this as a form of payment! So it won’t just be all the bullies who stole the other kids’ lunch money that get the advantage of healthy and delicious snacks. Anyone on your school’s debit system will be able to access the new school vending machines. And of course, the machines also accept credit cards and cash.
4. It’s About to be The Law
President Obama has vowed to rid schools of the “sugary snacks and drinks” that fill your school vending machines now. He is aiming to get this measure into the Reauthorization of Childhood Nutrition Act, which will be negotiated sometime this year. If you upgrade your vending machines now, you’ll be ahead of the curve! And who knows – Michelle Obama might even visit your school on her eradicate-child-obesity tour to congratulate you on taking the steps to keep America’s youth healthy!
5. HUMAN’s Vending Machines are Sophisticated and Pretty
A sleek and attractive design will draw attention – both to the machines and to your school’s progressive image. Streaming videos on the machines educate kids about the dangers of obesity and malnutrition while drawing students in, which means more profit for the school. And if any big wigs stop by your campus to check up on things, they will be sure to notice that those vending machines project a sophisticated image that contributes to the learning environment. It may help them realize that your school is run effectively and efficiently, and deserves whatever funding is available to keep running at full capacity!
Model Teachers Buy From Healthy Vending Machines In School
June 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Do children in America have good role models for healthy eating habits? Parents are the most important role models for children’s development, but in some situations, parents are too busy to dine often with their children, and may fail to promote healthy eating habits when they do.
Teachers, on the other hand, are powerful role models with the ability to reach whole classes of children at once, and the chance to do so every day. If there were healthy vending machines in school, teachers would have both the motivation and the opportunity to model healthy diet practices for students.
In Japan, elementary and middle school teachers (and guest teachers) are required to eat with their students during lunchtime. Each person receives a portion of food, and every student is expected to finish everything on his or her plate. The teacher serves as a role model for this behavior, and deviation is generally not permitted. When I was an assistant English teacher in Japan, I was not allowed to eat with the students because I had a hard time swallowing the fried fish heads that were a regular part of the meals!
By middle school, Japanese students stop playing with their food and 
simply finish everything on their tray before clean up time (an innovative practice where all of the students clean the school—Japanese schools have no need for janitors!). Healthier diets and appropriate role models may both contribute to Japan’s significantly lower obesity rate than the U.S.’s.
In the United States, teachers rarely dine with their students in the classroom. Lunch is a free time for students when they are separated from teachers and other potential mealtime role models. Instead of buying meals from the school cafeteria, teachers usually opt to bring food from home.
But if there were healthy food options available at school, teachers and faculty would undoubtedly change that routine. If vending machines in school offered a variety of healthy snacks, eating lunch on campus would become easier and healthier for teachers and students alike. And providing nutritious foods for teachers to purchase and eat in front of the students would have the added bonus of finally providing those students with excellent mealtime role models in school!
Vending Machines in School Could Mitigate Student Eating Disorders
June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Our increasingly health conscious world has its advantages. The knowledge we have about human health today can help people to live longer, healthier, happier lives. But there is a dark side to staying on top of the latest diet trends and health tips. Many health conscious students are putting themselves in danger of malnutrition and eating obsession by refusing to eat lunches from school cafeterias. With healthy snack selections, vending machines in school could help to alleviate this growing problem.
I recently learned that a young girl who is close to my family skips breakfast every day because she is “not hungry.” She then eats nothing for lunch because the food in her school is not up to her standards, and finally deigns to eat dinner only when something healthy is served. She is only 13 years old, and I am afraid she is in danger of developing a disorder. I did a couple of quick searches online, and found that she is far from the only one with these distressing habits (scroll down on the link to see many children and teens with similar stories). Many young girls and boys are skipping both breakfast and lunch—with complaints about school food at the forefront of their reasoning.
Changing the messages our children get from mass media and the insecurities of their own peer group may not be in the cards for us. It would not do any good to demand that they eat unhealthy food that may further contribute to a negative self-image. But we can encourage them to find healthy food options, and to avoid skipping meals whenever possible. Informing children that their brains need nourishment to function fully through a school day can help them to make better decisions. And by making healthy food available to them, either in their cafeterias or through the vending machines in school, we can provide them with the tools to make healthy eating choices every day.
Would Kids Eat Healthy Snacks From Vending Machines in School?
June 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
If the vending machines in school offered organic trail mix, vitamin water, and protein bars instead of junk food, kids would eat the healthier snacks!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the food kids get in school today is neither healthy nor delicious. School cafeterias and traditional vending machines offer cheap, processed foods with high fat and sugar content, and little nutritional value. But a recent study shows that when healthy meals are served in school cafeterias instead of the more common unhealthy meal options, kids do not shy away from the healthy lunches.
The study looked at data on school lunches in over 300 Minnesota public school districts. They determined that the schools that served the healthiest meals experienced the same amount of demand for cafeteria lunches as the schools that offered only unhealthy meals. It is conventional wisdom that kids prefer junk food to more wholesome options, but this study suggests that for kids, availability is more important than preference.
Schools could help instill healthy eating habits in their students simply by providing healthier snacks for students. The above-cited study states that in order to serve healthy lunches, school cafeterias would have to upgrade their kitchens and retrain staff – a potentially expensive process.
But there is another, easier way to make nutritious foods available to kids. Schools can encourage their students to eat more healthily by replacing all of the older, junk food-filled vending machines in school with newer, more attractive vending machines that are packed with healthy choices, such as granola bars and organic juices.
Since hungry children will eat whatever is most readily available to them, we can help them eat right by filling schools with affordable healthy snacks. Healthy vending machines can help!
Vending Machines In School… Could Be So Cool!
June 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I recently enrolled at my local community college for continuing education, and while I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed being back in school, I was even more surprised at how difficult it was to get decent food on campus. It got me thinking about how great it would be to have healthy vending machines in school!
As an SF Bay Area veteran, I was used to vegan and vegetarian, organic, and fair trade options wherever I went. Yet all I could find on this campus was a meager cafeteria…. And, oh yeah, some dirty, very old-looking vending machines with all the typical junk food snacks that I would almost never choose to buy. Don’t get me wrong, I love Doritos, but it just isn’t what my body craves these days. I got to thinking, who chooses these vending machines anyway? Vending machines in school could be so much cooler!
If you are a fan of NBC’s The Office, you might remember an episode where the whole office is trying to lose weight for a corporate incentive program. To facilitate the process, Dwight empties out the break-room vending machine of all its normal chips and cookies, and replaces them with raw fruits and vegetables which he hammers into place. While his execution might have been a little off (later in the episode you see him spraying bug repellent into the machine to try to kill off the fruit flies that have accumulated), his idea was a great one.
Healthy diet options, including veganism and vegetarianism, are becoming ever-more popular diet choices, especially among college students. One study estimated that as many as one in four college students are interested in vegan meal options. Replacing the old vending machines around college campuses with ones that offer healthy snacks would be a welcome change for the student population!
I’m Sweet on Healthy Vending Machines!
June 16, 2010 By 1 Comment
Have you ever wondered why high-calorie, low nutrition foods are so widely available, while healthy snacks are practically specialty goods? Can you imagine….convenient, fast, affordable nourishment ready for you nearly everywhere? What a dream to walk up to a healthy vending machine in your neighborhood and find nutritious tasty fare at reasonable prices!
HUMAN is a company that provides Healthy Vending Machines which offer a huge range of satisfying, delicious snacks including organic juices and protein shakes, granola and fruit bars, dried fruit, nuts, and multi-vitamin packs, as well as fresh and hot foods. With over a thousand product options, they actually tailor the product mix to each location and demographic. They can also base the mix on specific needs such as organic, allergen-free, or gluten-free diets. HUMAN has spent years doing research so their vending machines will be efficient and effective for everyone.
Obesity is a big problem in our country and many have blamed the convenience of unhealthy foods. HUMAN is “Helping Unite Man And Nutrition” by bringing balanced, savory foods to convenient locations and promote healthier eating in the general public. Their healthy vending machines provide a simple solution through an impressive business model that also encompasses a strong sense of social responsibility.
As a community, we can create an environment that battles obesity and protects the health of our loved ones. HUMAN’s company mission promotes health education and even donates 10% of proceeds to charitable causes that fight obesity and malnutrition.
If you are health conscious, community oriented and green loving, you too will be sweet on Healthy Vending Machines!
Hi, I'm Kelly! I'm a UC Berkeley graduate and my time in the bay area has taught me to love organic, fair trade, free range, locally grown, and all things healthy and nutritious. I'm interested in learning about how getting healthy vending machines into schools around the country can help fight poor nutrition habits among children in America, and I am here to share what I find!