Junk Food Vending Machines Take a Break at County Schools

By Whitney Teal

It will be slightly more difficult for Montgomery County students to get their hands on packages of crunchy snacks with artificial flavors and dyed colors that aren’t not found in nature during the upcoming school year.

Vending machines selling snacks that aren’t in line with certain nutritional guidelines will be turned off for 30 minutes once classes are done, The Washington Post reports. The measure came at the insistence of a parent group, Real Food for Kids — Montgomery, and is meant to keep kids from buying lots of snacks before they go home, The Post reported.

It’s a small victory for the group, which wants to push further.

“We don’t want those machines at schools, period,” Lindsey Parsons, co-founder of the group. “We know students are at school for longer than 30 minutes after the day ends.”