To evaluate the impact of increased availability of healthier options on purchasing of different types of vending snack products sold in English leisure (sports) centres.

An evaluation of an intervention using pre-post methods and interrupted time series analysis. Products within the vending machines were altered over three phases to increase the availability of healthier options, using agreed nutrition criteria – Government Buying Standards for Food and Catering Services (GBSF) for England – as a guide, as well as product availability. The primary outcome was the change in mean weekly purchased energy between the first and third phase. Secondary outcomes included changes by phase and by week in weekly number of purchases, fats, sugars and salt for all products combined and by individual product categories.

Fifteen sports centres in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK.

Snack products sold in eighteen vending machines.

Energy purchased reduced from baseline to phase 2, for all product categories combined, by 47·25 MJ (95 % CI (−61·22, −33·27)) per machine and by 279 kJ, (95 % CI (−325, −266)) per product unit. There were reductions in most nutrients purchased in all individual product categories except chocolate confectionery. Nutrients per product unit decreased for all product categories except saturated fat in chocolate confectionery. Minimal underlying trends in the baseline phase were identified, indicating changes in outcomes were likely to be due to the intervention.

Introducing standards to increase availability of healthier snack products in vending machines is feasible without substantially affecting sales.

To evaluate changes in the retail food environment profile in a Brazilian metropolis over a 10-year period.

An ecological study was conducted in the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The addresses of formal food establishments were geocoded and classified according to their sold-food profile. Density changes were analysed according to neighbourhood, population size, income level and geospatial distribution.

Totally, 468 neighbourhoods in the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Totally, 83 752 formal food establishments registered for operation in any one or more of those years: 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2018.

There was an increase in unhealthy establishments (154 %), followed by mixed (51 %) and healthy establishments (32 %), during the period evaluated, in addition to an increase in density according to income categories. There was a higher proportion of unhealthy establishments in relation to healthy establishments, indicating worsening of the community food environment over time.

Over the course of 10 years, changes in the neighbourhood’s food environment were unfavourable for adequate access to healthy foods in lower-income neighbourhoods. The findings reinforce the need for interventions aimed at increasing the availability of businesses that offer healthy food in the city.