- Hospital Vending Machines
The other day I sat in the Ocean Beach Hospital lobby and watched a curious situation unfold. Tables were being set up and all sorts of desserts were being laid out – chocolate cream pies, chocolate chip cookies, brownies. You name a favorite baked goodie and I have no doubt that it was there. The air was redolent with the fragrance of sugar.
The display was part of a fund-raiser for Relay for Life, certainly a worthy cause. There were many non-food items on view as well, but during the half hour or forty-five minutes I watched, it was the desserts that sold. It must have been break time for the hospital work force because, even before all the prices could be affixed, people were gathering ’round, money in hand.
I amused myself by noting the large number of ‘hefties’ (as my great-aunt called her overweight friends) who bellied up to the laden tables and walked off happily with their purchases, versus the few slim, trim folks who barely glanced in that direction. I also pondered the display of diabetes information on an adjacent bulletin board. Perhaps if the setting had been other than a hospital I would not have had so many conflicting thoughts coursing through my mind.
Meanwhile, almost-but-not-quite out of sight were the vending machines offering a variety of beverages and snacks. I had noted on a previous visit that those monoliths of temptation had disappeared from their usual place near the admitting desks and I had silently applauded their removal. But no, only down-graded to a spot by the elevators! I took a look for the “healthy choices” someone told me I could find there but I must have missed them.
On the other hand, as I wrote a few days ago, the food from the hospital’s Basement Bistro is delicious and, as far as I could tell, prepared with both nutrition and enjoyment in mind. So many conflicting messages being presented under one roof – the very roof covering the bastion of good health care in our community! Or are my expectations just too high?
I do not think your expectations are too high. On the same note, at least the pop machines only sell juice and water at the high school now. Although some of those juices are criminal as far as the sugar content goes. the snack machines do not sell candy either, just chips and nuts and cracker types of snacks, it a start!
Good information about the high school. Back in the dark ages when I was in high school I was on the student council when the first vending machines were proposed for school use. I remember that we thought about what choices we would offer and finally decided on pencils, small notebooks, and apples! I don’t think there were any other food items and I do remember mega discussions about whether to offer any food choice at all. What a difference 57 or 58 years makes!
Each and every time I go to the clinic or the hospital I am taken aback by the predominance of “hefties’. Having long been one maybe I am just now like a reformed smoker and notice all.
Yep, state and and national laws dictating what can be put in vending machines. However, as Patti pointed out they still aren’t necessarily healthy choices.
Lack of stuff has played havoc with ASB finances though. Give and take no matter what.
How are Nyel and Broody Hen? Has she presented anymore babies?
When you can’t fight it tax it.
Working in a hospital makes me much more aware of choices I can and/or should make. Seeing so many people who are either ill or just not optimally healthy is a daily wake-up call for me, and encourages me to take the stairs (because I can!), for instance, and to give more thought to what I choose to eat or not eat. Of course, a lot of health related “bullets” cannot be dodged, but many can, and I hope to dodge as many of those for as long as I possibly can!
So nice to know that when I walk into a hospital, push a grocery cart, order at a restaurant my choices are being evaluated by people I have never met. People who feel free to evaluate me and my choices as I am a “hefty.” I must say that “bellied up to the table” is certainly a clever use of language but hardly reflects the reality of many people who struggle with food and/or weight whatever the size of their belly.
I weigh 63 lbs less than my high weight – I am proud of that. But I am still large. which really doesn’t bother me. But peoples willingness to watch what I purchase and/or eat and comment on it or form conclusions based on it is really annoying.