A Post-Event Analysis of the Healthy Eating Advocacy Project

Now that it's over, it is nice to be able to look back over the course of the semester and see how our final project planning came together and resulted in an actual advocacy event with moderate attendance. If you read over my posts from earlier in the semester, you will notice that my fellow group members and I were initially unsure of the type of event we wanted to promote. Early on, we were leaning toward sponsoring a healthy run/walk for children and families, but soon realized that such an event would require money and more time/effort than we would be able to devote to it in the midst of a semester already filled with lots of papers and projects for other classes. A brainstorming session led us to the idea of hosting an on-campus speaker from the nutrition field who would discuss healthy eating. After further discussion, I suggested hosting a panel of speakers so we could present varying perspectives from experts in different nutrition/health related fields. The other girls liked this idea, so we agreed to move forward with planning for such an event. Each of us contacted possible speakers for the event; I contacted JMU Dining Services, while the other girls contacted professors in the Health Comm. dept, UREC staff, and the Dietetics dept. It turned out that the Health Comm. professors declined our invitation, since they don't really focus on nutrition, which we understood. Then, I received an enthusiastically positive response from Dining Services, who promised not only to provide a speaker for the panel, but also agreed to cater healthy snacks for the event! This was certainly an encouraging response to receive as we were excited to have secured at least one speaker, along with snacks that would provide an incentive for students to come to our event. Then, we heard back from UREC, who recommended a particular grad student who would be able to participate on our panel. Also, our contact in Dietetics referred us to the registered campus dietician from the Health Center. We reserved a room in Harrison for Thursday, April 23rd at 6:30 p.m., since this date and time worked best for those we had asked to speak. We thought 6:30 would be early enough to catch some students who were still on campus, while not affecting typical Thursday night college activities. It turned out that the dietician had to cancel at the last minute due to a funeral, but we replaced her with another person from dining services. So, for our actual event, we had 3 panelists: the marketing director of dining services, the district manager of dining services, and a UREC grad assistant.

All in all, we felt that our event was a success. While the speakers did an excellent job of talking about nutrition, fitness, and eating healthy on campus, it would have been nice to hear a dietician's opinion. Also, during the question and answer session, several questions addressed topics that only a dietician could effectively answer, and the panel speakers noted that fact. The speakers provided lots of informative handouts for students, but the most impressive part of the event was the selection of "light snacks" that Dining Services provided. As you can see from my pictures in the previous post, the catering far exceeded our expectations! The spread consisted of red pepper hummus dip, pita bread, bean dip, couscous salad, fresh veggies, trail mix, and angel food cupcakes. Attendees even got to take home leftovers!

Finally, in hindsight, there are several things that we could have done differently that may have resulted in increased attendance. Near the end of the semester, students tend to be busy with projects and papers, and aren't likely to attend educational type events unless they are required. Holding the event earlier in the semester and attempting to make it a wellness passport event would likely have helped attendance. Also, I realized that we should have created a Facebook event to invite friends and classmates, since it would have provided a subtle reminder for those who may have considered coming but forgot about it. Lastly, most students are eager to get off campus on Thursday evenings, so a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday may have been a better idea. Despite these factors, I still feel that things went very well for our first attempt at putting on such an event. Hopefully those in attendance left with a greater knowledge of how to incorporate healthy choices in their everyday lives.