Nutritional quality of snacks and beverages sold through vending machines in a large Hispanic-serving urban college campus in the United States: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Students from nutritionally-vulnerable neighborhoods face dietary challenges through built environment of college vending machines. In this cross-sectional study, snacks and beverages sold in vending machines for a 4-week period in a Bronx-based Hispanic-serving college were recorded. Nutritional information was recorded from nutrition labels. Proportion of low- and high-sodium foods, “smart snacks” with a limit of 200 kcal and 200 mg of sodium, and foods with added sugar were recorded. Snacks had significantly higher calories and sodium per serving (227 kcal, 208 mg) than beverages (132 kcal, 90 mg) ( t-test, p < 0.001). Almost a third of the snacks (32%) qualified as “smart snacks” for calories and 62% qualified as “smart snacks” for sodium. Beverages contained less than half the number of ingredients as snacks. About 53% of beverages and almost 60% of snacks listed sugar among the first five ingredients. Results underscore the need for colleges to promote less-processed entities with less added sugar.

Caracterización del entorno alimentario de una universidad en Medellín, Colombia: retos para la promoción de una alimentación saludable

“…Estas máquinas se caracterizan por estar en diversos sitios y no poseer opciones saludables en general. Los productos ofertados son altos en calorías, sodio, grasa saturada, azúcar y son escasos en micronutrientes [24][25][26][27] . En este estudio, las máquinas expendedoras de alimentos ocuparon el primer lugar según tipo de establecimiento, 14 de 21 fueron de este tipo y se caracterizaron por ofrecer productos comestibles ultraprocesados.…”