How Healthy Vending Options Fuel School Success

Many factors have to come together for a student to thrive in school. One of those important factors is a healthy diet that provides the body with the energy it needs to learn and grow.

Unfortunately, the kinds of quick foods that students often have on hand don’t necessarily fit into the “healthy” category. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With healthy vending machine snacks close at hand, students will be able to fuel up in a positive way and set themselves on a path to sustained success. Turn to InReach today to learn more about healthy vending options for your campus.

Benefits of Offering Healthy Vending Options at School

The Connection Between Nutrition and Academic Performance

It stands to reason that students will perform better academically when they have proper nutrition fueling their bodies and brains. Most people can relate to the experience of feeling sharper and more capable when they have eaten a healthy, nutritious meal before sitting down to listen to a lecture, take a test, or work on an assignment (“brain food,” anyone?).

On the flip side, we can all relate to the difficulty of focusing on cognitive work while feeling hungry or when energy is lacking due to eating a meal high in fat or sugar (or both). Learning new things or producing high-quality, creative work is difficult, and it requires our brains to be working at their highest level to get the job done.

More and more research is standing behind the connection between good nutrition and academic success. For example, this study finds a link between academic accomplishments and dietary intake for college students. The body of research in this space continues to accumulate, and it consistently points to the value of a quality diet in helping students reach their potential.

Promoting Overall Physical Health

Maintaining mental energy throughout the day is going to help students perform better in their studies. But that’s far from the only positive associated with having healthy vending options available. With access to healthy snacks, students may be able to maintain a healthy weight, avoid disease, and simply feel better about themselves. Help students avoid the “freshman 15” by offering quality snacks and meals to help them feel their best mentally and physically.

Given the close bond between physical and mental health and the ability of healthy snacks to help students maintain balanced energy levels throughout the day, quality vending options can be seen as a critical addition to any campus. Without much free time to search for the right snacks, students are going to reach for what is convenient. By partnering with InReach, you can make sure that healthy and fresh options are available to all.

Another way that physical health impacts academic performance by enabling students to be present and in their seats day after day. When a student is dealing with persistent health issues that are related to a poor diet, they may regularly miss classes – and it is extremely difficult for anyone to keep up or catch up when they miss too much school. Even if vending machines with healthy snacks only play a small role in maintaining the overall health of your students, it will be worth it to help them be present and ready to learn as often as possible.

Stable Energy Leads to Stronger Social Ties

Forming supportive relationships on campus is another component that can help students do better in class. Again, we see how quality snacks can serve that goal. When a student feels good throughout the day and is physically healthy, it will be easier to take part in social activities, have a positive attitude toward others, and form meaningful connections.

Students are going to go through some ups and downs in their social lives. At some points, things will be going well, and there will be plenty of positive relationships to enjoy. At other times, however, relationships may be strained, and social interaction can feel challenging. A good diet can’t eliminate that reality, but it can help the student to cope with the difficult emotions they encounter. Being physically healthy and having good energy levels can smooth out emotional ups and downs and make life easier to manage as a whole.

Teaching Another Valuable Lesson

School is all about preparing for the future. No matter the subject, the point of education is to put students in a better position moving forward. The primary focus is to support the students in earning a degree or certificate that will open up employment opportunities and give them options in life.

At the same time, students can learn things in school that go beyond coursework and test scores. Helping young people create healthy diet patterns early on is something that could benefit them over the course of life just as much as the education itself. Professional success in a given field may require a certain education, but it is also going to require good health. When students leave your campus with both of those things in place, the sky is the limit for what they can accomplish.

What Do Healthy Vending Options Look Like?

There are plenty of options for healthy vending snacks when your school teams up with InReach. Foods that tend to support overall health feature real, whole ingredients, don’t have too much sugar, and don’t have an abundance of fat. Snacks that are high in protein and include some healthy fats are a great start. A few of many examples include Greek yogurt, nuts, berries, hummus with veggies, and salads with quality ingredients.

Offering a healthy assortment of snacks in your campus vending machines doesn’t mean that traditional vending machine foods need to be banned, though. There is still room in a well-rounded vending program for the kinds of foods that fall into the “treat” category, such as candy bars. It’s all about balance and presenting your students with a range of options so they can select the right snack for their needs that day.

Upgrade Your Campus Vending With InReach

Should schools have healthy vending machines? Absolutely! Providing healthier vending options on your campus might seem like a small thing, but it can make a huge impact on the day-to-day experience of your students. With nutritious, tasty food always nearby in healthy vending machines, it will be easier to get the right kinds of calories to fuel academic success. Learn more by contacting InReach to discuss your needs. We make healthy vending a convenient, approachable endeavor. Let’s get started!