Healthy Dining CEO Shares Insights with Journalists, Health Advocates on Restaurant Industrys Efforts to Help Reverse Obesity Epidemic
Posted by admin | Posted in Mobile Phones | Posted on 14-04-2012-05-2008
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San Diego, CA (PRWEB) April 13, 2012
Anita Jones-Mueller, MPH, Healthy Dinings Founder and CEO, recently joined other industry executives and health professionals in panel discussions on the national health threat of obesity at two conferences the Marketing Disease Prevention and Awarenesss (MDPA) Communicating Childhood Obesity Prevention conference and the National Press Foundations Obesity Issues 2012 program.
As a leading authority on health and nutrition, Jones-Mueller shared her insights at both conferences on the proactive efforts of the restaurant industry and how Healthy Dining, together with its restaurant partners and in collaboration with the National Restaurant Association, are working diligently to contribute to enhancing the overall health and well-being of Americans. Five years ago, Healthy Dining launched its premier restaurant search engine, HealthyDiningFinder.com, through partial funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)s Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Program. The recently redesigned website offers a one-stop resource to find dietitian-approved Healthy Dining menu choices from participating restaurants nationwide spanning fast food to fine dining.
We are seeing a growing number of restaurants rise to the challenge and create more menu items with health and taste in mind, with an emphasis on lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, whole grains and unsaturated fats, said Jones-Mueller. In the last five years, the number of restaurants offering Healthy Dining-approved choices has quadrupled, to more than 350 companies, and the number of qualifying menu choices has increased by 1000%. That is a big leap forward for public health.
Jones-Mueller added that the Kids LiveWell Program, developed by the National Restaurant Association in collaboration with Healthy Dinings team of registered dietitians, has more than 80 brands that have signed up for the program. Last summer, we launched the Kids LiveWell program with 19 restaurant companies. Since then, new restaurants are joining almost every week. It is exciting to see restaurants so enthusiastic about pleasing their young guests with healthful fare and more importantly, showing their commitment to childrens health and well-being.
The two-day MDPA national conference, held in Silver Spring, Md., brought together government, public health, and academic organizations with private industry and healthcare providers to discuss their respective roles fighting childhood obesity. Jones-Mueller participated in a panel discussion on How the Food and Beverage Industries Are Helping to Fight Childhood Obesity. The National Press Foundation (NPF) program panel, entitled Reversing the Obesity Epidemic: Role of Business & Industry, was part of a four-day fellowship for journalists from across the country, called Obesity Issues 2012, presented by the NPF and the University of Colorados Center for Health and Wellness. This program was held in Aurora, Colo., at the Centers new innovative, state-of-the art research, education and patient care facility on the University of Colorados Anschutz Medical Campus.
Healthy Dining has been actively working on a number of groundbreaking initiatives with strategic partners across the country to contribute to enhancing health and reversing the obesity epidemic, including:
