Healthy IU, IU’s wellness program, plans to install 10 pilot vending machines with healthy new vending options by early to mid-November, said Steven Lalevich, IU’s registered dietitian.
“One of Healthy IU’s initiatives is to make more healthy food available on campus,” he said. “So right now we’re focusing on vending machines, trying to make healthier food available in vending machines.”
Healthy IU will conduct Taste and Tell events where students and faculty will have the opportunity to try potential new vending options and provide their feedback through surveys, Lalevich said.
Potential new vending options will include nuts, sunflower seeds, trail mix, pretzels, crackers and various protein and granola bars, Lalevich said.
Once students and faculty have had the opportunity to sample the potential new vending options, surveys will ask them which items they would eat, for which items they would pay and how often they eat at vending machines, Lalevich said.
“We want to make available more healthy options, but we want to choose those healthy options that people want,” he said.
Based on the data collected from the Taste and Tell events, Healthy IU will then install 10 pilot vending machines across campus, Lalevich said.
These pilot vending machines will use a stoplight system, denoting snacks as red, yellow or green, based on Healthy IU’s healthy snack nutrition guidelines.
Snacks that have 250 calories or less, 250 milligrams of sodium or less and no trans fat will meet the healthy snack nutrition guidelines.
No more than 35 percent of the calories can come from fat, no more than 10 percent can come from saturated fat and no more than 25 percent can come from added sugar, Lalevich said.
Snacks that meet the healthy snack guidelines and are a whole food source will be denoted as green. Snacks that meet the healthy snack guidelines or are a whole food source will be denoted as yellow.
And snacks that neither meet the healthy snack guidelines nor are a source of whole food will be denoted as red.
Whole food sources include snacks whose main ingredient is a fruit, a vegetable, whole grain, dairy or protein, Lalevich said.
“We don’t want to see an overall reduction in vending sales,” he said. “We want to just convert some of the red purchases to yellow and, hopefully, green purchases.”
Lalevich said though Healthy IU aims to provide healthier options in vending machines, the healthiest options will not come from vending machines.
“It’s a small component of a larger initiative,” he said. “I don’t know if the vending aspect is going to completely change the health on campus, but it’s one step in that direction of making IU a healthier place to work and a healthier place to be.”
The first Taste and Tell event will take place from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Thursday at the 42nd IU Health Fair in Alumni Hall.
In addition to the Taste and Tell event, the Health Fair will feature vision and hearing tests, massage and aromatherapy, strengthening exercises and flu shots, said Cathlene Hansen, IU Health Center director of health and wellness education.
“(The Health Fair) brings about this safe one-stop shop of community information and resources,” she said.
Hansen said the information and resources will address all aspects of health.
“Across the wellness spectrum, you have emotional health and mental health and physical health and sexual health and occupational health and financial health,” she said. “We try to touch on every one of those topics. We want to make sure that this is a holistic, well-rounded opportunity.”
The information and resources will also stress health and well-being promotion rather than disease prevention, Hansen said.
“It’s easy for Western medicine to focus on preventing disease,” she said. “But we want to go a step before we get there to say that we want to promote health. And when you’re promoting health and well-being and a better quality of life, you’re not even getting close to ?illness.”
