We examined outcomes following the implementation of employer-wide vending standards, designed to increase healthy snack and beverage options, on the proportion of healthy v. less healthy sales, sales volume and revenue for snack and beverage vending machines.

A single-arm evaluation of a policy utilizing monthly sales volume and revenue data provided by the contracted vendor during baseline, machine conversion and post-conversion time periods. Study time periods are full calendar years unless otherwise noted.

Property owned or leased by the City of Philadelphia, USA.

Approximately 250 vending machines over a 4-year period (2010–2013).

At post-conversion, the proportion of sales attributable to healthy items was 40 % for snacks and 46 % for beverages. Healthy snack sales were 323 % higher (38·4 to 162·5 items sold per machine per month) and total snack sales were 17 % lower (486·8 to 402·1 items sold per machine per month). Healthy beverage sales were 33 % higher (68·2 to 90·6 items sold per machine per month) and there was no significant change in total beverage sales (213·2 to 209·6 items sold per machine per month). Revenue was 11 % lower for snacks ($US 468·30 to $US 415·70 per machine per month) and 21 % lower for beverages ($US 344·00 to $US 270·70 per machine per month).

Sales of healthy vending items were significantly higher following the implementation of employer-wide vending standards for snack and beverage vending machines. Entities receiving revenue-based commission payments from vending machines should employ strategies to minimize potential revenue losses.

Highly processed foods such as convenience foods usually have a high salt content and therefore might indirectly act as adipogenic due to an increasing consumption of sugar-containing beverages (SCB). We examined the association between dietary salt and body weight status.

We used data on urinary Na excretion as an indicator of dietary salt and BMI standard deviation score (BMI-SDS) and percentage body fat (%BF) of children and adolescents participating in the DONALD (Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed) Study.

Dortmund, Germany.

Children and adolescents (n 364) who had at least two 24 h urine samples and two dietary records in the observational period between 2003 and 2009 were considered in our data analysis.

Repeated-measures regression models revealed that urinary Na was positively associated with BMI-SDS (+0·202 SDS/g Na excretion at baseline; P < 0·001) and %BF (+1·303 %BF/g Na excretion at baseline; P < 0·01) at baseline in boys and girls. These associations remained significant after adjustment for SCB consumption and total energy intake. Furthermore, there was a positive trend between baseline Na excretion and the individual change in %BF in the study period (+0·364 increase in %BF/g Na excretion at baseline), which was confirmed after inclusion of SCB consumption or total energy intake. There was no significant association between the change in Na excretion and the concurrent change of either BMI-SDS or %BF in any model.

Our results suggest that a high intake of processed salty foods could have a negative impact on body weight status in children and adolescents independently from their consumption of SCB.