Impact of Smart Snacks Intervention on College Students’ Vending Selections

Abstract

Objectives

To place Smart Snacks in vending machines and determine if different sales strategies affect Smart Snack selection.

Participants

University students living in resident halls

Methods

Vending machines included 50% Smart Snacks and 50% non compliant snacks. Three sales strategies targeted student selection of Smart Snacks: Reduced price, signage, and nutrition education activities. Three-way ANOVA was used for analysis.

Results

There was a statistically significant three-way interaction on snack selection between sales strategy, study period, and snack type, F(4, 77) = 3.33, P = .01. There were no statistically significant simple two-way interaction between study period and sales strategy for either Smart Snack, F(1, 77) = 1.62, P = 0.18, or NC snack types, F(1, 77) = 2.02, P = 0.07.

Conclusions

Sales strategies did not affect Smart Snack selections. Advocates for healthier snacks in vending machines can align with university administrations to establish nutrient guidelines.

Keywords:

• Health education
• healthy snack vending
• university vending

Acknowledgments

Kathy Tidwell: Manager of Contractual Services and Director of University Licensing, graduate students enrolled in the Nutrition and Education Theory course fall 2017, and RebelWell.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the University of Mississippi.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.