Healthy Eating Awareness Initiatives
Healthy eating has much to do with lack of the right information, awareness and knowledge to make good decisions. Making available opportunities for workers to become educated on making better choices not only for themselves but also their family is a very valuable service.
Awareness initiatives are among the simplest and most cost effective Worksite Wellness Programs you can implement. They involve a continuous flow of information in many different forms including fliers, newsletters, announcements, or vending machine stickers.
Wellness Seminar presentations are also a wonderful awareness intervention as they heighten interest and raise knowledge but they should not be the primary company program offered. They’re not effective enough, at least I don’t believe, to make major changes for lasting impact.
Here are some example Wellness Seminar presentations that you could offer on a monthly or quarterly basis.
- Portion Distortion & Calorie Counting
- Cooking Demonstrations with a dietitian
- Food Guide Pyramid Information (My Pyramid)
- Eating through the Holidays
- Stress Management and Emotional Eating
- Raising Fiber Consumption
The goal of awareness interventions is mainly to raise worker knowledge and understanding of risks associated with certain behaviors. The main objective is to instigate change among worker lifestyle choices.
Here are some ideas for healthy eating awareness initiatives that you can implement in your company:
- Monthly or weekly emails (or even fliers in break rooms or cafeterias) to workers giving a short wellness tip and maybe a recipe they can use at home.
- Place brochures around the company about healthier choices, fast food nutritional content, or any other critical nutritional information.
- Ask a dietitian to come onsite and answer worker questions or concerns on a regular basis.
- Supermarket Savvy—help workers understand the basic of shopping for healthier food choices at the supermarket. Tips, recipes, and resources available to help you!
- Fruity Fridays (or whatever day works best) where the company provides fruit at no cost or subsidizes the price of the fruit for workers in break rooms, etc.
- Place educational stickers or notes on vending machines that would tell workers how much physical activity they would ought to do to burn the calories from a Snickers bar or Mountain Dew.
- Regular bulletin board publications about healthier food choices, recipes, or tips.
- March is Nutrition Month. Support better nutrition by providing a month full of activities directly related to making healthier food choices.
- Healthy Eating for Busy Moms. Moms are hardworking workers and could use this wonderful information to keep their families healthy!
Those are just several of the ideas that I have seen and/or implemented on our own to support healthier eating habits. There are so many wonderful things that you can do at your company. Have fun and enjoy and be sure to Contact Us if you have any questions!
Changing the Corporate Environment can also help start healthier food choices among worker populations.
