Banning Soda and Snack Machines in Schools Will Not Affect Children’s Unhealthy Eating Habits: Study

Nutritionists say removing vending machines from schools will not help regulate intake of junk food and soda in children.

Childhood obesity is serious global health issue that is associated with many health complications and risk of early mortality. Socio-economic trends like long working hours, high number of single-parent households and accessibility to fast food chains and restaurants influence the eating habits of American families. Many children consume too much processed food and sugary sodas and high energy sports beverages and have high probability of falling prey to obesity-related illnesses.

Experts at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), conducted a study to observe trends in the consumption of sweetened beverages and junk snacks in 8,245 high-schoolers across 27 states in the country. The researchers examined if having vending machines in schools and heavy taxes on unhealthy food impacted  eating choices in participants.

Their analysis revealed almost 23 percent of students in schools reported drinking sodas in schools that had access to vending machines compared to 28 percent that did not have. These behaviors were noted particularly in states with low taxes on sodas. Similar results were seen with respect to consumption of fast food and fatty snacks in schools without snack vending machines.

Subjects who lived in states with less sales tax rates on fast food reported eating more of it than their counterparts in other states.

 " The study shows that there may be unintended effects if you only make small-scale changes. When more comprehensive changes were implemented, there were no unintended effects," said Daniel Taber, lead author and a former researcher at UIC's Institute for Health Research and Policy in a news release. These findings indicate the schools' nutritional policies like restricting the accessibility to unhealthy and high-caloric snacks will not prevent school-aged children from gratifying their cravings from other sources. "Policy changes really need to be comprehensive and not just focused on one item such as regular soda or one location such as cafeterias," said Jamie Chriqui, a study co-author and senior research scientist.

 More information is available online in the journal PloS One.