Smart and slim

One study after another has shown that Americans are too fat for their own good. The fattening of Maine, like other places, often starts with the sodas and chips and candy that students buy at vending machines. They gobble them down when mid-morning hunger pangs develop because they hadn’t eaten a good breakfast.

In the country as a whole, 55 percent of the adult population is overweight and obesity in childhood and adolescence has doubled in the past 10 years. In Maine, obesity rates increased by 40 percent in that decade. Overweight youngsters have an increased risk of high blood pressure and abnormal glucose tolerance, which can lead to diabetes.

Orono High School has done something about the situation. The principal, Cathryn Knox, and the teachers watched students who had left home at 6:30 a.m., often without breakfast, begin to sag by 10 a.m., with lunch possibly hours away. Unless they had thought to bring a snack from home, they turned to the vending machines. The beverages there were mostly sugar and water, with as little as 10 percent juice. Such drinks and the chips and candy were popular but of little nutritional value.

The school’s staff and Faculty Advisory Council asked the vending companies to stock the machines with drinks that were 100 percent juice and snacks that made more dietary sense. They put the new specs out for bids. Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola made proposals including some healthful drinks, but a small family-owed firm in Bangor, Schreiber Vending, won the contract with an all-healthful product line. Schreiber did some research and managed to find products that suited the high school’s criteria, would fit into the vending machines and were priced so the students could afford them.

But there was a catch. Making the changeover meant giving up sizable revenues. Schools get a kickback of as much as several thousand dollars a year for offering the sugary snacks. Some call it a “principal’s slush fund,” and it is usually earmarked for various athletic programs. At Orono High, the principal, the athletic director, and the various athletic programs agreed to give up the money. The students like new system, says Ms. Knox.

“Kids are hungry, and they will eat what you offer them. And the vending machines empty just as fast as when they had candy and chips.”

Some other area high schools are edging toward a solution by closing the soda machines during school hours and including some nutritious items along with the junk foods. But Orono High has gone all the way and is breaking new ground.

Carl Schreiber, owner of the new contract, says he thought nutrition in vending machines would never work. “When you put the granola bars in next to the Snickers, they will take the Snickers. I figured let them try it and when they want to go back to sodas I’ll be there.”

“How wrong can you get?” he says. When the only thing they could get was nutritious, they took it.