Junk food bans at school tuck shops work

CARDIFF, Wales, May 14 (UPI) -- Children eat more fruit if unhealthy snacks are banned from tuck shops -- small, food-selling stores in schools and youth clubs -- Welsh researchers found.

The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at the amount of fruit eaten at 43 primary schools in deprived areas of South Wales and Southwest England.

Children who attended schools banning sweets and potato chips and had tuck shops selling only fruit ate 0.37 more portions of fruit per day than those at schools without a fruit tuck shop, while children at schools which banned all food ate 0.14 more portions of fruit per day.

When food was unrestricted, fruit consumption was lower than in other schools, even if the school's tuck shop sold only fruit.

"Our results suggest that children are more willing to use fruit tuck shops and eat fruit as a snack at school if they and their friends are not allowed to take in unhealthy snacks," study researcher Laurence Moore of Cardiff University said in a statement. "This highlights the importance of friends' behavior and of peer modeling and of the need for schools to put policies in place to back up health interventions."