Posts Tagged ‘fruits’

Maintain- Don’t Gain!

November 28th, 2012

Join me and challenge yourself this holiday season. Give yourselves the most important holiday gift, the gift of health. Visit North Carolina’s Eat Smart, Move More website to get started today! Not only will you be provided with easy and fun ways to stay on top of the seasons’ calories, but you can also join the Eat Smart, Move More Holiday Challenge for free. This is a Self-Challenge to help you be more mindful of your nutrition and physical activity during the time of the year that is always the biggest challenge.  This year,  maintain, don’t gain. 

Remember: You don’t have to do it alone. Stay motivated and support one another. How about being sure to offer some healthy choices during office holiday celebrations?  Instead of bringing in cookies and candy, you can bring a fruit dessert or healthy veggies with low-fat dip.  Please visit Healthy Recipes for Eating Smart for great recipes to help you  along the way.  How you participate is up to you — follow along with other participants just like you on the Holiday Challenge Blog.  Sign up today!

 

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Food Day

July 26th, 2012

On October 24, 2012—and on the days and weeks before and after—thousands of Americans will gather in schools, college campuses, farmers markets, city halls, and state capitals to talk about what’s right and wrong with our diets and whole food system and how to fix them. Food Day unites people from all walks of life—parents, teachers, and students; health professionals, community organizers, and local officials; chefs, school lunch providers, and eaters of all stripes—to push for healthy, affordable, and sustainable food. 

ADHS will work with people around Arizona to support events in homes, schools, churches, farmers markets, city halls, and worksites. A Food Day event could be as simple as organizing a cooking class or a vegetable-identification contest in your child’s elementary school—or a healthy pot-luck dinner with friends. College students could organize forums that explore how our dietary choices impact the environment, the health of farm workers, and the treatment of animals. County health departments could kick off healthy eating challenges with staff. And city councils could hold hearings on how to increase supermarkets and farmers markets in underserved areas. 

Stay tuned for how you could join ADHS in supporting Food Day 2012 in Arizona. Check out our healthy living page for more information on our current activities supporting access to healthy foods in Arizona

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Milk Research & Policy Change Cuts 7B Calories a Year in AZ

February 24th, 2012

Congrats to our Women Infant & Children’s program who did some research and implemented some simple policy changes that reduced the consumption of 7 Billion calories annually in AZ.  How?  After we did a little research, we came up with a way to change our WIC policy… convincing people to replace whole milk with 1% or fat free milk (for kids over 2).  The policy change reduced fat by nearly 900 million grams and calorie intake by more than 7 Billion per year. Let’s take a look behind the scene. 

A few years ago the Arizona Nutrition Network did some research on milk preferences among our WIC recipients. We found that folks thought lower fat equals lower nutritional value- which is why they didn’t buy low fat milk.  Next, we developed a social marketing campaign to encourage Arizonans to “Go Low, All the goodness without the fat” and drink 1% or skim milk.  The Arizona WIC program promoted the messages in our WIC clinics…  and the “Go Low” social marketing campaign improved the success of the policy change in WIC.  The result- 7 Billion fewer fat calories are being consumed by our WIC recipients every year. 

Now for the sequel.  A couple of years ago we began encouraging WIC participants to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets and grocers with their vouchers. Knowing how successful the “Go Low” campaign was, we partnered with the Arizona Nutrition to promote fruits and vegetables… but this time, the policy change didn’t achieve the expected results.  We did a little more research and found out that folks wanted frozen and canned fruits and vegetables more than fresh (shelf life)- so we added canned and frozen fruits and veggies to our list of foods families can buy in WIC.  In the first 3 months we had a huge increase in the purchase of fruits and vegetables.  WIC participants are now purchasing $1M of fresh, frozen, and canned fruits and vegetables monthly.

So what did we learn in all this policy change?  Number 1- it’s critical to do research to guide your public health interventions and to measure results to find out whether your interventions are successful, and Number 2-  meet your target audience where they are, and be practical.

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New School Lunch Standards on the Way

January 31st, 2012

The USDA released a new final rule that will set new nutrition standards for the federal child nutrition programs that serve millions of children across the country every day. The new rule fleshes out the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. It’ll increase how many fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that are in school lunches (under the program) and reduce saturated fat, trans fats and sodium, and set more appropriate calorie levels based on the age of the kids that get the lunch.   You can check out some new before and after menu examples here.

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AZ “Putting Prevention to Work”

May 16th, 2011

Last year we received funding from CDC to implement the Communities Putting Prevention to Work, which aims to achieve broad reaching, highly impactful, and sustainable change to reduce chronic disease burden associated with obesity and tobacco.

This week CDC notified us that Arizona is a “high performing” state. What does this mean? CDC will soon be visiting Arizona providing additional evaluation support to determine whether or not our program will be used as a “best practice” example for other states. Why did Arizona receive this award? In just 15 months, our team has leveraged our grant resources to improve physical activity and nutrition and cut tobacco use in Arizona schools, hospitals, worksites, and childcare facilities. Here are few examples of what the team has accomplished so far:

  • Trained over 20 hospitals and 2000 nurses on maternity care practices that encourage mothers to breastfeed and keep breastfeeding.
  • Helped create healthy schools where students can be physically active and have access to healthy foods, like fruits and vegetables.
  • Trained more than 200 school staff and partners to assess their nutrition and physical activity programs and policies using the CDC’s School Health Index.
  • Inspired over 500 parents, teachers, and administrators to create healthy change at their school with our new School Health Advisory Council Video.
  • Helped schools examine barriers that keep students from walking and biking to school safely by completing our online assessment, the Active School Neighborhood Checklist.

Imagine how many more Arizonans our team will impact with 9 more months to go! Congrats to our Nutrition and Physical Activity and their CPPW team!

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Yet Another Obesity Call to Action

August 19th, 2010

You probably think I sound like a broken record because I’m always writing about obesity…  but it really is the dominant public health issue of our time.  Last week, the CDC released its latest Vital Signs report called “State-Specific Obesity Prevalence Among Adults – United States, 2009,”…  which finds that nine states had an obesity rate of 30 percent or higher in 2009. In comparison, no state had an obesity rate of 30% or more 10 years ago.  The report also finds that people who are obese incurred $1,429 per person more in medical costs every year when compared to people of healthy weight, and that the nation’s total medical costs of obesity were $147 billion in 2008.  OK that’s the problem- so what’s the solution?

 

The solution is a combination of public policy changes and community planning, combined with better education and personal responsibility.  For example, people need to eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer foods high in fat and sugar; drink more water instead of sugary drinks; be more physically active; and watch less TV.  As a society, we need to promote policies and programs at school, at work and in the community that make the healthy choice the easy choice.  You can read a lot more on the CDC’s Vital Signs Adult Obesity website.

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Healthier US Schools Challenge Program

March 10th, 2010


 

The federal Healthier US Schools Challenge Program establishes rigorous standards for schools’ food quality, participation in meal programs, physical activity, and nutrition education – key components that make for healthy and active kids – and provides recognition for schools that meet these standards.

In the next school year, the USDA’s goal is to double the number of schools that meet the Healthier US Schools Challenge.  Schools can participate in this model program by going to http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/healthierus/index.html and learning about the range of educational and technical assistance materials that promote key aspects of the Dietary Guidelines, including a Menu Planner for Healthy School Meals, which provides tips on serving more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and lower amounts of sugar, sodium, and saturated and trans-fats in school menus.

In addition, major school food suppliers have agreed to meet the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations (mentioned in the yesterday’s blog) within 5 years to decrease the amount of sugar, fat and salt in school meals; increase whole grains; and double the amount of produce they serve.

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