Abstract

"As part of a school-based intervention to prevent obesity in 7 public schools located in Chile, we carried out a study to determine the children's preferences related to the types of foods purchased at the school kiosk in two of those schools. We interviewed 668, 10-13 years old children (53.1% boys) and in addition to the types of foods purchased, we assessed the foods brought from home. A descriptive analysis of the data was carried out. Sixty percent of the children had money to buy snacks; they mostly bought sweet snacks (35%), juice and ice cream (33%) and salty snacks (30%). Eleven percent of the children bought yogurt and 7% fruit. Children indicated as motivations to buy high energy snacks: were tasty (82%), sold at the kiosk (46%) and are cheap (38%). It is important to increase the supply of healthy snacks and to develop strategies to motivate schoolchildren to prefer them."