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.

Pics from tonight's event

Overall, we deemed tonight's event a success!!! Here are some pics so you can see how it turned out. I'll post a write-up within the next week.

Delicious & healthy refreshments courtesy of JMU Dining Services

I know what you're thinking..."how are cupcakes healthy?" They're angel food and made with low-fat ingredients...even health nuts can enjoy tasty treats! :)

Handouts for attendees

Mrs. Angela Ritchie, Marketing Manager of JMU Dining Services

Stephanie Hoshower, Director of JMU Dining Services

Sarah Price, UREC Graduate Assistant

Sarah, Kristen, Alex, and Me...all smiles that our event was successful! :)

Amusing Conversation at Market One

Leave it to me to engage in a healthy-eating related discussion in the drink line of a campus dining facility...but I found this exchange amusing and wanted to share it with you all.

So, I had just gotten my red pepper hummus and veggie wrap (like I do practically every day) from the sandwich shop in Market One and was standing in line at the fountain drink machine. One of the dining services ladies was in line ahead of me. It turned out that we both began filling our cups at the same time, mine with Coke Zero and hers with Mr. Pibb. She looked over at my cup, then back to hers and said "Yeah, I prefer the high fructose corn syrup in my soda, while you're being all healthy with your no-calorie drink." I laughed a bit and then she added, "but at least I'm being somewhat healthy and eating a salad along with it!" She motioned to the prepackaged salad in her hand, and I couldn't resist jumping at the opportunity to take our discussion one step further. "Ah, well that's good...but are you going to put dressing on it?" She responded "Oh yes, but not too much though." To this I replied "Oh ok, but what kind of dressing?" I had a feeling I knew what was coming...and she quickly validated my suspicion. "Oh, I love ranch dressing!" At this response, my health conscious self couldn't resist making a final remark. "Ohh, but ranch is one of the worst ones for you!" I played this off with a slight laugh, as if I was joking, in an attempt to keep from offending her, to which she responded "Oh well, it's not like it matters to me...I'm not on a man hunt or anything!" Priceless response, although it's kind of sad that the only incentive for some people to eat healthy is the idea that they should maintain their weight in order to impress the opposite sex.

While my discussion with the dining services lady in Market One today was quite amusing (to me at least), it provides an example of a typical healthy eating myth that needs to be debunked. While it is true that eating a plain salad, or one with low-calorie/low-fat dressing is indeed healthy, combining it with a sugary soda and high fat dressing completely obliterates its healthiness. Many restaurants have taken advantage of this recent popularity of salads by introducing all types of chicken salads, fiesta taco salads, cobb salads, seafood salads...you name it, and it's probably in a salad! Sure, anything with "salad" in the title automatically sounds healthy, but once they add cheese, croutons, creamy dressing, bacon bits, etc. these salads end up having as many calories and fat grams as a burger!

Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't order salads...definitely not! Just make sure that you make smart choices when you order (i.e. order a low cal dressing and ask for it on the side, avoid anything crispy, and ask them to go easy with the cheese). Okay, I feel better now that I've debunked that myth for anyone who was unaware of this. Be sure to come out to our Healthy Eating panel discussion tomorrow to hear many more myths "debunked!" (Shameless plug for our advocacy event....you knew it was coming!)

Hope to see you there!

Healthy Lifestyle panel discussion event...finalized details!

It's hard to believe that our Healthy Lifestyle panel discussion is this week! For anyone who is interested in coming (and we hope you will!), our event is this Thursday, April 23rd in Harrison room 1241 from 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.! There will be representatives from UREC, Dining Services, and Dietetics engaging in discussion and answering panel questions. As an added incentive to attend, Dining Services has kindly agreed to provide free healthy snacks for all attendees! I realize there are many other things you might rather be doing on a Thursday evening, but our event will be over by 7:30, which leaves plenty of time to go enjoy the typical H-burg Thirsty Thursday nightlife. Our group is really excited to see our event coming together and really want it to be a success! Hope to see you at our event on Thursday, and please bring friends! :)

Healthy Lifestyle event progress

Well, things seem to be coming together for our advocacy event.  Sarah, Kristen, Alex, and I met several times over the past 2 weeks to plan who was going to contact which potential panel speakers, coordinate possible days/times to hold the event, and update each other on the progress we were making.  We came up with a tentative title for our event: "Debunking the Myths: Nutrition in College, On & Off Campus." It turns out that our initial idea of having a Health Comm professor on the panel wouldn't really make sense, since neither of them specializes in nutrition. However, Professor Thompson provided some useful suggestions on people from the Dietetics department to contact. So far, we have lined up a speaker from Dining Services and another from UREC, and working on finding one more speaker, hopefully from Dietetics, to complete our panel. Tentatively, we have set the date for our event on April 23rd, but are still waiting for confirmation of an available room in Harrison or Taylor, and also need to make sure that date will suit everyone on the panel. Dining Services has even been so kind as to offer to provide light, healthy snacks for event attendees. Hopefully all of the details will be finalized within the next week, at which point we can begin publicizing/promoting our event through fliers, table tents, word-of-mouth, making announcements in classes, etc.

So far, this event has been fun to plan! The members of our group are really passionate about our topic and we work well together. We just hope that everything comes together and that we have a decent-sized turnout for our actual event. Nutrition and healthy eating habits are essential at every stage of life, but with our busy and sometimes stressful schedules, college students tend to neglect focusing on what they should be eating. Instead, many of us choose the most convenient options, which are usually the least nutritious. By putting this issue at the forefront of students' minds, we hope to alter their every day lifestyles and make them think twice before reaching for that Pop-Tart or whatever unhealthy foods they typically turn to. Let's just hope that we are successful at achieving this goal!