Impact of Healthy Vending Machine Options in a Large Community Health Organization

Purpose: To determine whether increasing the proportion of healthier options in vending machines decreases the amount of calories, fat, sugar, and sodium vended, while maintaining total sales revenue. Design: This study evaluated the impact of altering nutritious options to vending machines throughout the Banner Health organization by comparing vended items' sales and nutrition information over 6 months compared to the same 6 months of the previous year. Setting: Twenty-three locations including corporate and patient-care centers. Intervention: Changing vending machine composition toward more nutritious options. Measures: Comparisons of monthly aggregates of sales, units vended, calories, fat, sodium, and sugar vended by site. Analysis: A pre-post analysis using paired t tests comparing 6 months before implementation to the equivalent 6 months postimplementation. Results: Significant average monthly decreases were seen for calories (16.7%, P = .002), fat (27.4%, P <= .0001), sodium (25.9%, P <= .0001), and sugar (11.8%, P = .045) vended from 2014 to 2015. Changes in revenue and units vended did not change from 2014 to 2015 (P = .58 and P = .45, respectively). Conclusion: Increasing the proportion of healthier options in vending machines from 20% to 80% significantly lowered the amount of calories, sodium, fat, and sugar vended, while not reducing units vended or having a negative financial impact.