Events
Upcoming & Ongoing Activities
Promote Healthier Beverages in Health Care
Across the country, the health care community is taking steps to eliminate sugary beverages and increase access to tap water within their facilities. By signing the pledge, you will join with the hospitals, health care professionals and health advocates nationwide who are addressing one of the primary contributors to obesity and related diseases.
SIGN THE PLEDGE help us get to 500 signatures by National Nutrition Month (3/1/12)
More Facts:
- In the past 30 years, U.S. obesity rates have doubled among adults and tripled among children.
- The consumption of sugar sweetened beverages is associated with the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and gout.
- Between 2000 and 2010 an average of 2.55 million acres of corn, roughly 2.5 times the size of the state of Rhode Island, were grown each year just to produce high fructose corn syrup.
- Read more about these recommendations and additional resources are outlined in Hydrate for Health
A few ways to take action...
Drink Up: Promoting Access to Water in Your Hospital
Provide “sips” of educational information on:
- Tap Water vs. Bottled Water: cost savings and environmental benefits.
- The impacts of bottled water on both health and the environment.
Cafeterias
- Increase the number of filtered tap water stations available.
- Provide easy access and clear signage to water fountains and dispensers
- Provide an incentive one day per week (Water Wednesdays) by offering a meal discount to those who utilize a reusable water bottle on their tray.
Catering
- Offer water infused or garnished with citrus slices or herbs in large dispensers
- Serve ice and water in pitchers at meeting with reusable drinking glasses or compostable cups.
Patient Trays
- Use filtered tap water with reusable cups instead of bottled water on patient trays.
MICHIGAN Highlights from the 2011 Menu of Change Report
During the spring of 2011, thirteen Michigan hospitals participated in the national Health Care Without Harm Healthy Food in Health Care (HFHC) Survey & Awards Program. This organization published a 2011 Menu of Change Report (see next story below) to disseminate information on industry benchmarks, program highlights and awards. This four-page document is a companion piece providing results based only on Michigan surveyed participants.
Background. The HFHC Survey was conducted as merely a measurement of work self-reported by hospitals and long-term care facilities engaged at some level in HFHC work. Though Award finalists were required to provide documentation, general responses were not audited. Data collection was focused on measuring progress made by facilities in 2010. Respondents from eighty-nine facilities completed the survey; thirteen of which were from Michigan.
Michigan’s Trend. In 2009, Michigan had only three HFHC Pledge signing facilities; however today, our state has forty-three HFHC Pledge Signers, a state-wide Michigan Healthy Food Work Group and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association has launched a two-year Healthy Food Hospitals initiative with over ninety participating facilities.
Healthy Food in Health Care: 2011 Menu of Change Report
The Menu of Change Report contains the results of a 2011 survey of health care institutions engaged in Healthy Food in Health Care work, from which the 2011 Sustainable Food in Health Care Awards were derived. The 2011 Menu of Change Report also contains a summary of HFHC national initiatives, program highlights from 2010, and detailed information on the winners of the 2011 HCWH awards.
Your hospital may be interested in benchmarking your healthy food initiatives against those facilities surveyed or just simply interested in what other Michigan hospitals are doing. More than a dozen of Michigan hospitals participated in the survey this past spring.
All Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge signing facilities will receive a hard copy of the report before the new year. You may also download an electronic copy of the report.
Food Matters videos and calendars produced for clinical education 
What we eat profoundly impacts the health of individuals, our communities, and the environment. Obesity, diabetes, malnutrition, childhood cancer and other chronic diseases are the costly consequences of our current consumption patterns, both in terms of human well-being and healthcare expenditures. The present model of clinical education does not place emphasis on a prevention-based approach, and excludes a thorough understanding of the impact of our food system on human health.
A Food Matters training was conducted last month in Michigan and they will continue to take place throughout the United States. The training was intended for physicians, nurses, dietitians and other clinicians, and other maternal/child healthcare professionals to review the obesity and western disease epidemics; link to the current science around exposures to environmental toxicants within our food system; and the impacts of these exposures on pediatric, reproductive, and ecological health. These short videos below and calendars have been created as educational tools for employees, patients and visitors.
If interested in receiving copies of the calendar or using these resources, please contact Hillary at hillary@ecocenter.org or (734) 369 - 9282.
Video 1: Food Matters: In the Womb & Beyond
Video 2: Food Matters: Clinicians Address an Industrialized Food System Gone Awry
Video 3: Food Matters: Hospitals Serving Up a Menu of Change
Developed by Health Care Without Harm, San Francisco Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the University of California San Francisco's Program on Reproductive Health and Environment.
Michigan Healthy Food Work Group
This advisory group of hospital members has been formed to work on healthy food initiatives under the Michigan Health & Hospital Association's
Michigan Green Health Care Committee. Please contact Hillary at hillary@ecocenter.org for more information or to join.
Balanced Menus Challenge
Join Healthcare Food Service Leaders from Around the Country in the Balanced Menus Challenge
Balanced Menus is a systematic approach to reduce the amount of meat protein in hospital food and a strategic pathway to serving the healthiest, most sustainably produced meat available. Through Balanced Menus hospitals can mitigate climate change, reduce costs and promote nutritional health. The Balanced Menus Challenge is a voluntary commitment by a healthcare institution to reduce their meat procurement by at least 20% within a 12-month period.
Here are just a few ways your hospital can showcase Balanced Menus Recipes:
Choose one day per week to showcase Balanced Menus meals
Choose one week to showcase Balanced Menus meals
Use Balanced Menus as inspiration to redesign your menus on a broader scale
Showcase Ideas
- Meatless Day of the Week. Eliminate meat one day per week in your cafeteria.
- Substitute sustainably-produced meat for one day, or in one recipe, and promote this change
- Reduce your burger size and serve sustainably-raised beef, bison or lamb
- Offer reduced prices on a particular day for meat-free or reduced-meat items
- Introduce a new meat-free recipe
- Redesign recipes to increase vegetable and grain portions and reduce meat/poultry
- Offer meals where meat is a compliment to a variety of grains and vegetables, not the center of the plate
Support PAMTA - Electronic Petition & Toolkit
Antibiotic resistance continues to be a growing problem in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) roughly 2 million patients get an infection in a hospital, and about 90,000 of those patients die as a result of that infection.
The American Nurses Association (ANA), American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and nursing organizations nationwide have expressed their opposition to non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics by supporting the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (S. 619/H.R. 1549) also known as PAMTA. The ANA has also adopted two resolutions calling for a phase-out in the non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics.
Individual doctors, nurses and registered dieticians can make a difference by using the information provided in the electronic toolkit to support changes at the federal policy level, within the walls of their institutions and in their personal food choices. More resources and information can be found on the following website: http://www.noharm.org/us_canada/nurses/protect_antibiotics.php
Or visit the following link to sign the electronic petition today! http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5140/t/8175/signUp.jsp?key=1459