Another day. Another report on the state of the UK’s
health. The Academy of Medical Royal
Colleges, which represents nearly ever doctor in the UK, has deemed ballooning
waistlines a “huge crisis” and made a number of recommendations to drive
lifestyle changes that they believe will undo the current state of affairs.
Amongst their recommendations is the old chestnut close to the heart of anyone
in the vending industry; a ban on vending machines in hospitals.
Let me say, straight up, that there is no
denial about the situation. 26% of the
adult population of the UK categorised as obese* (based on BMI**) is not good
news. But bans on vending machines? Really?
And what of the retail outlets in the same hospitals – ban those
too?
Of course hospitals should be places of
health, wellbeing and education to support all of us in a healthy
lifestyle. However, removing a few
vending machines could be seen as merely window “undressing”. There it was, gone! Actually, would it not be better to stock
machines with different products and support people through education?
Interestingly, 24vend were involved in some
research where sales from vending machines located in a busy city NHS hospital
were tracked (via a telemetry system) over a period of a month. No surprise that the peak of sales occurred
consistently at 8pm and 2am when all other forms of refreshment were probably
unmanned or unavailable. Convenience is
at the heart of vending and those who were hungry at 8pm and 2am (I would take
an educated guess) were not unwell patients being mended and made better, but
the amazing NHS staff who were working long and arduous shifts at anti-social
hours. Remove vending and then what?
The report goes some way to parallel the
food environment with that of tobacco.
Whilst, we’re here to think about vending, I would just make the comment
that whilst you don’t need to smoke; you do need to eat and
drink. That’s why the staff in the
hospital were buying things in the dark hours
of the night; they were working and needed refreshment!
So, our message today is that we know too
many people in the UK are not as healthy as they ought to be and that things
need to change. However, banning without
intelligent conversation on how things could be different is missing a massive
opportunity. There is huge good work
going on in the global vending community supporting people on their journey to better lifestyles. If any of you are thinking of
attending AVEX this year, there will be an entire day dedicated to the topic of
health and wellbeing; save the date - June 12th 2013, NEC Hall 3. Birmingham. A day that was
planned a long time before this report came to light! Get in touch if you want to know more.
So, let’s not be lazy and just ban things
we think aren’t right; let’s enter into good old thrust and parry, intelligent
debate and drive change. We love to talk vending, health and innovation!
So, on that note, I’m off to the gym!
*OECD statistics 2012
**BMI is a calculation of weight/height ratio 
