Let's make the vending machines healthy!

The habit of frequent purchases of sweets, salty snacks or sugary sodas from vending machines can adversely affect our diet. Yet food vending machines are often located in primary and secondary schools. Our school also has vending machines and pupils are taught to use them for shopping.

The aim of our project was to raise awareness about the issue of excessive use of food vending machines. In particular, we expect individual pupils to reflect on the question of what is or is not appropriate to buy in vending machines. At the same time, we believe that, given the type of collective competition, the issue of the appropriateness of food vending machines will be discussed among the pupils themselves, thus drawing attention to a sensitive topic in a very natural way.

In a first step, we analyzed the content of the food vending machines at our school. In the second step, we launched a three-day challenge for the classes of the Secondary Medical School and the teaching staff, which we called "Let's paint it to the vending machines".

We made a sign available near the food vending machines with a list of classes and food groups. Visitors to the vending machines used a comma to mark their purchases in the appropriate box (by food type). In a third step, we assessed nutritional behavior in relation to vending machine purchases. Scores were calculated for each class (teacher collective).

Those who, according to the evaluation, used the vending machines in the best way in relation to their health during the three days were rewarded with carrot muffins baked directly by the pupils who announced the challenge.