Social Enterprise Promoting Health and Nutrition for Kids

Helping Unite Mankind and Nutrition (HUMAN) is an innovative social enterprise based out of California that has come out with a unique way to fight childhood obesity. Andy Mackensen, the co-founder of HUMAN Healthy Vending and a self-described social entrepreneur, has a clear focus that the problem of obesity can be rooted out when children are kept away from obesity.

HUMAN has introduced a line of vending machines that help make health food products accessible in public places such as community centers, hospitals and gymnasiums. HUMAN ensures that the machines themselves are energy efficient and eco-friendly, and apart from other places, they are placed in one of the key battlegrounds in the war against childhood obesity: schools.

Mackensen says, "We need to start where the problem is - in schools. We want to get healthy products and education in the kids' minds and hands early so they know how to eat right." Recent figures from the CDC reveal that childhood obesity has more than tripled over the last three decades. In 2008, one-third of all children and adolescents were either overweight or obese, as per the estimates of CDC.

Nearly a thousand HUMAN vending machines are already functional in 38 states in the U.S., apart from Canada and Puerto Rico. The machines also provide nutritional information via LCD screens that display streaming videos on top of each unit. The machines dispense only such food products that have been approved by health experts.

The machines typically dispense fresh veggies and fruit, health snack foods such as pita chips and granola bars, and healthy frozen meals that can be heated within the machine. Each unit is fitted with remote sensors that automatically provide HUMAN Healthy Vending's operating partners with the status of inventory and food expiration dates. HUMAN has a goal to install 10,000 vending machines by 2015.

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