October 1, 2008
· Filed under School Healthy Vending, YoNaturals Healthy Vending in Schools · Tagged childhood obesity, school nutrition, Yo Naturals, YoNaturals vending
Although most parents undoubtedly realize that childhood obesity is a problem and a serious medical condition that afflicts an ever growing number of children in the United States, many fail to recognize the problem when it shows up in their own household. In fact, 2600 American adults recently took part in a study that revealed to researchers that there is a “stark mismatch” between a child’s weight problem and a parent’s ability to recognize it as such.
As a part of that study, respondents were asked about the height and weight of their oldest child. Scientists were then able to crunch these numbers and come up with a number indicating the child’s body mass index (BMI). The researchers then compared these numbers with their own data in order to classify the child as obese. Children with a BMI that fell into the 95 to 100 percentile range for their age and gender were classified as obese, while children with a BMI in the 85 to 94 percentile range were classified as overweight. A full quarter of the participants’ children met one of these two thresholds.
However, when parents were asked about their own child’s weight, many parents did not recognize their own child’s weight problem, although parents of teens were more likely than parents of other age groups to do so. Nonetheless, an overwhelming majority of parents (84%) said that they would like for their child’s physician to talk to them about childhood obesity during their child’s regular office visits. Fortunately for the children, that number indicates that many parents are receptive to advice on helping their child maintain a healthy weight.
Of course, the first step to correcting a problem is recognizing and admitting that there is a problem. Educational organizations are doing a good job of changing minds about allowing junk food and sugary sodas into our public school systems, but it is also important for individual parents to realize that the school cannot be responsible for what goes into their child’s body when away from the school grounds, which ties in with the next step.
In order to correct the problem, it is important for parents to educate themselves on how to provide proper nutrition to their child’s growing body. And, as the study has shown, it is also important for parents to familiarize themselves with the healthy weight ranges for their child’s age and gender group. The CDC and USDA can be very helpful when seeking more facts on childhood obesity, as can your child’s physician. No matter who you turn to for information, they are sure to say that one of the key factors to improving your child’s health is providing healthier snack options. Choose healthy alternatives for your child by opting for snacks from YoNaturals health food vending machines, and take your stand against childhood obesity.
Author: Laura Rayburn
September 23, 2008
· Filed under School Healthy Vending, YoNaturals Healthy Vending in Schools · Tagged Healthier Food in School Vending Machines, Yo Naturals, YoNaturals
It’s a problem that has been ignored for far too long. Every single school across this country has vending machines. Every single school, where our children spend the majority of their waking time each weekday, has multiple vending machines that offer their tempting wares, available for just the change in their pocket. Don’t you think we should be paying at least a little bit of attention to what these machines are offering our youth?
We have waited far too long, and the situation has become dismal. The contents of school vending machines have gone completely unregulated for decades at this point, and the results are very discouraging. Junk food and soda companies have launched a carefully premeditated plan of attack at our children, and it has succeeded with flying colors. Unhealthy snacks and soda dominate the landscape, and the worst part… there is no question that our students are buying this junk.
It is almost unthinkable that we have allowed junk food companies to spread their tentacles so deeply into the heart of our health as a nation. We have essentially allowed them to install vehicles by which they can market and sell sugary sodas and overly processed junk directly to our students in schools, a place that is supposed to encourage and nurture their development into productive and healthy members of society. A place that should always be protected and safe. It truly is the ugly side of a completely free market economy. But economic interests should never be allowed to outweigh those of the health of our nation’s youth, and that is exactly what has happened.
YoNaturals is taking a stand. Our healthy vending machines provide only natural and organic snacks and drinks, and our new initiative (Schoolhealthyvending.com) allows schools to replace their old unhealthy machines with no money down, and to keep 100% of the profits when the machines pay themselves off. Perhaps there are many people who should take the blame for allowing the situation to get to where it has; parents, schools, government institutions, etc. But with our increased knowledge of the harmful affects of processed sugars and preservatives to our health, couple with the fact that schools can make just as much profit if not more with healthy vending machines, school administrators and food service personnel should have absolutely not to have a YoNaturals machine on their campus.
With epidemics like child obesity and early onset diabetes tearing the fabric that is the health of our society, time is short, and we must make great effort to reverse the damage we have already caused. But it can be done, and we are laying the foundation for just such a plan. Join us in our efforts to better America’s health by supporting organic and natural vending on school campuses nationwide.
September 15, 2008
· Filed under School Healthy Vending, YoNaturals Healthy Vending in Schools · Tagged healthy school vending, School Vending Machines, vending machines in schools
With all our knowledge of health and nutrition in modern times, you would think providing healthier snacks in school vending machines would not only be feasible, but easy to do. Parents and schools should be welcoming organic and natural vending snacks and drinks for our students and children with open arms, right? Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. What you actually don’t hear about is the whispers between school administrators behind close doors: “But we make so much money from our vending machines. What if kids don’t want to buy healthy food?”
That’s right, schools are worried about affecting their profits. Not that this concern is totally unfounded; as we all know, schools are typically underfunded and lack the funds for many beneficial programs. But we can hardly justify funding these programs at the expense of our students’ health, especially with the current child obesity epidemic. There is simply no question that junk food in school vending machines is causing serious health problems, as well as behavioral problems. An experiment in the United Kingdom showed that healthy vending machines can be both profitable and positively influence child behavior in school.
So what is holding us back here in America? The answer is just as insidious as I alluded to above: schools are addicted to the revenue from junk food in vending machines. It is a two pronged attack which begins with billions of dollars in advertising and ends with school vending contracts. Thus, the junk food and soda companies have both a brainwashed youth and access to them where they spend at least one-third of their time each day of the week.
As quoted in the previously linked article:
“A Coca-Cola Co. spokeswoman declined to specify financial terms of school contracts, but said, “We are in the schools because the schools are asking us to be there. We want our beverages to be wherever thirsty people are.“
Oh, I bet you do. That’s like the tobacco industry saying they want their cigarette’s to be wherever addictive personalities are. We all know that children have a special need for protection and that companies should not be free to target children by marketing any product they choose, if it is against their well-being. Would we like a pervert try to be “wherever unattended little girls are”? Of course not.
Now, perhaps obesity is not quite as bad as child molestation. Nonetheless, once we are 100% sure that certain products are causing harm to our children, and we are that sure about sodas and junk food, we need to take any and all measures to protect our kids and our students. That is exactly what YoNaturals is doing with our line of healthy vending machines, which provide only organic and natural snacks and drinks.
It’s time to get our schools off the unhealthy vending machine kick. Countless experiments have proven that children will eat snacks that are nutritious and delicious if such options are provided to them. Only we can make the changes for a better future for our children. Take a look at School Healthy Vending, and see what you can do to ensure that this happens.
September 8, 2008
· Filed under School Healthy Vending, YoNaturals Healthy Vending in Schools · Tagged vending healthy in schools, YoNaturals healthy vending machines
Across America, there is a truth to the fact that as our economy grows, so do our waistlines. The supporting facts can be seen by simple observation of the people that surround you inside and outside of your home. Although our growing affluence is not a bad thing, the rise in the number of obese and overweight people in this country attests to the fact that many Americans have embraced poor diets and shunned physical activity as they are given more choices about what to eat and their jobs require less physical activity than ever before. Unfortunately, this shift to a more sedentary lifestyle is part of the reason that obesity has reached epidemic proportions in this country.
A number of health care providers have seen the effects of obesity on their patients and are acting accordingly. This fact will be increasingly important in the years to come as number of cases of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and adult-onset diabetes continue to increase, all three of which are linked to sedentary lifestyles and obesity in general. In fact, the CDC estimates that around 400,000 people die each year due to conditions that are related to obesity. When that number is broken down into a daily value, it equals about eleven hundred lives that are lost each day due to these obesity-related health conditions, and this number is made all the more tragic when you consider the fact that obesity is largely avoidable.
Although your genes do play a role in obesity, namely how easy it is for you to put on and take off pounds, they are not the only factor at work in most people’s weight gain. This will seem like good news to the people who want to know that they have total control over their BMI and body weight, but it may also sound like bad news to the people who don’t want to take responsibility for their own health.
No matter which category of people you find yourself aligned with, the truth is the same for all. The only way to stop obesity and its many related diseases from claiming you as a victim as well is to take personal responsibility for the things that you eat and for getting enough exercise to maintain a good fitness level for your body. There are no magic pills that can help you with this, only responsible decisions to be made. And one of the easiest of those responsible decisions is choosing healthy snacks for yourself and your children.
Look for YoNaturals healthy vending machines in your workplace, at your child’s school, and when you’re out on the town. Choose them for your health.
September 1, 2008
· Filed under School Healthy Vending, YoNaturals Healthy Vending in Schools · Tagged healthy snacking, Yo Naturals, YoNaturals
Author: Jessica Vachal
There are always those days when you are so tired and worn out from a day at school or the office that the last thing you can think about doing is making yourself a healthy meal. Those are the days where nothing sounds better than the chance to grab a pizza on your way home, and wash it down with some beer, or at least a soda. However, you also know that nothing could be worse for your waistline; so if you are truly a good person, who wants all the work you put in at the gym to pay off for something, you will not indulge in your craving for the salty goodness of all that cheese, and will instead pop some leftover vegetable soup in the microwave, or heat up some of the salmon you have left over from that backyard grill you had that past weekend.
The problem is when you hit that point where all you can think about is how quickly you can get some food into your system because you were pretty sure your stomach had found a way to digest itself as you sat in traffic on the freeway. The problem is when you wait too long to eat between meals and suddenly your commute home from work is enough to make you wish you had an entire fest in front of you full of fried foods and cheesy goodness. The key here, my friends, is that you have to pack snacks. Yes it sounds trivial and silly and one would think that you grew out of this stage in elementary school, but the fact is that mom had it right when she packed you up for school with a lunch sack full of baggies of grapes and cookies. You need to keep your body fed every few hours or else your blood sugar drops and that ravenous hunger sets in and then you, and all your dieting goals, are done for.
You have to try to eat healthfully all throughout the day, but that does not translate to starving yourself by not eating enough. However, most of us don’t pack enough food aside from money for lunch, and as such we get hungry again a few hours after our – unfortunately too large portion of – lunch and then we end up traveling to the vending machine to try to stave off the hunger we know will set in during that evening commute. Your only saving graces here, would be if your school or office is progressive enough to stock a YoNaturals natural and organic vending machines, thus allowing you the chance to get organic juices and snacks that will help you to keep your healthy diet on track and not fall to piece when you are confronted with a Snickers bar ripe for the picking.
August 25, 2008
· Filed under School Healthy Vending, YoNaturals Healthy Vending in Schools · Tagged Student Health, YoNaturals in California
Refueling your healthy student shouldn’t be an impossible endeavor, no matter what age they happen to be. Whether parents pack a lunch for their little ones, the little ones pack it for themselves, or the school supplies the mid-day meal, healthy options should be top priority.
Much in the same way doctors and nurses could be spotted smoking cigarettes outside of hospitals, schools and their administrators should be chastised for their lack of attention in providing what’s in the best interest of their students. Well, now they have a chance to make it right with YoNaturals healthy vending machines.
Now it can take a simple push of a button to get a kid on his or her way to optimum performing level for that upcoming class. And that nightmare of forgetting to take or pack the lunch? No biggie- again look to those healthy buttons.
A few years ago, few nutritional advocates would have ever predicted that vending machine fare might become a viable alternative to the junk food that surrounds us. With chips, cookies and a myriad of other various salt and sugar vehicles, vending in the past was a minefield for our children’s health. But the times are changing, and the vending machine industry is evolving to meet consumer’s needs. With YoNaturals providing only organic and natural snacks and drinks, vending machines have become friend rather than foe.
The obesity rate is out of control and parents are finding themselves with less and less family time- leaving them at the lunchtime mercy of the food industry. An industry whose priority it is to make money, typically at the expense of our children’s health.
Sending little Susie off to school no longer needs to be like sending her off to a battle against fast food, junk food and empty calorie foods; now she can have access to what she needs to get through the day, even if you forget to pack her a healthy lunch.
August 18, 2008
· Filed under YoNaturals Healthy Vending in Schools · Tagged Healthy eating for children
Author: Jessica Vachal
Eating healthy can be a very daunting goal – it seems like every day we are inundated with new findings that certain fruits are better for you than others, or certain vegetables are downright harmful. We’ve already learned of the hazards of certain fish, levels of mercury, and certain vegetables once salmonella scares take hold of society. The list seems endless and that list can truly get a person panicky about what kinds of fruits and vegetables are actually safe to eat. That kind of doubt can turn a person off of fruits and vegetables completely.
However, the main point in taking these scares with a grain of salt is to recognize that every food has its problems and that, in general, fruits and vegetables is easily the healthiest food a person can possibly eat. Humans need fruits and vegetables to live; we need the nutrients they provide, the roughage they boast, and so forth. However, now that multi-vitamins are in creation, and so many people only take Vitamin C when they are feeling sick, the value of fruits and vegetables has all but been lost on our society. This is even more of a reason why we should push the benefits of fruits and vegetables to as many of our fellow humans as we can.
After all, we all need to take care of our health and as such we should all be eating more fruits and vegetables in our daily diets. The food benefits our bodies in ways too numerous to count and on top of all of this, the food will keep us feeling fuller longer as there is so much fiber in most fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet the fear of getting our recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables can also make people wary of the dedication of starting to get more into the foods. Yet, keeping up with some pre-set “standard” is nothing any of us should be concerning ourselves about. Instead, we should just try to eat a piece of fruit with each meal, and a vegetable source with each meal. If we all did that, we would be very well covered in getting our fruits and vegetables into our bodies each day.
So go ahead, make a small change and dedicate yourself to eating a banana with your breakfast cereal, an apple with your lunch, and an orange after dinner. Cut up some tomatoes to put into your scrambled eggs with breakfast, eat some celery with lunch and make sure to include cooked veggies with your dinner! Making small changes can make a big difference, so do your best to make sure you start incorporating fruits and vegetables into your daily life – it can be easy if you just start small!
