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HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign for the
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With the holidays upon us and lots of yummy sweets and treats at every function, it's also a time to think about ensuring healthy choices are available for employees. HEAL Cities & Towns wants to help you shape your municipal work site into a place where healthy eating and active living are the norm. Is your municipality ready to adopt policies to make the healthy choice the default choice in the workplace? Learn more by visiting www.healcitiesmidatlantic.org/.
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| Featured Topic of the Month |
Healthy Eating in the Municipal Workplace
It is easy or difficult to eat healthily at your workplace? With full-time employees spending about 2080 hours at work each year, many mealtime and snack decisions are made in the context of the work environment. From candy bowls to vending machines to those break-room donuts, eating healthily at work can be a challenge. With a little bit of effort up front, it doesn't have to be. By providing FREE technical assistance, HEAL Cities & Towns can help you to adopt policies that make City/Town Hall a place where it is easy for your employees to make healthy choices about food and beverages. Here are just a few examples of simple steps that you can do to make eating healthily at work easier:
- Not every meeting needs to have refreshments provided. Save money and calories by only providing food at meetings and events that are scheduled during regular meal times.
- Create a policy that any event or function that serves food should include fresh fruits and vegetables. Research has shown that employees are supportive of having healthy foods at meetings(1).
- Provide water and coffee at meetings, rather than sugar sweetened beverages, like soda.
- Develop a policy to ensure that healthy, delicious food options are available in vending machines in addition to traditional vending fare, like potato chips (2).
- Having a pot luck? Bring smaller-size bowls and plates. Larger bowls have been shown to encourage people to take and eat more food (3).
- Swap out your candy bowl for a fruit bowl.
- Does your workplace have a cafeteria? Provide nutrition labels for the foods served so that employees can make more informed eating decisions.
Your employees want to be healthy! HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign can help. Check-out the upcoming webinar (below) for more detailed information, and do not hesitate to contact HEAL Cities & Towns for one-on-one support.
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Congrats to our newest HEAL Cities & Towns
| | Hats off to the Town of Bel Air and the City of Greenbelt for adopting HEAL Cities & Towns Resolutions. Both municipalities are now part of the Inaugural Class of HEAL Cities & Towns in Maryland. Nine spots remain in the Inaugural Class! Join today! |
| Community Spotlight |
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville has made health and wellness top priorities, as demonstrated by its adoption of a resolution that addresses healthy food access in the municipal workplace. Just a few highlights of its resolution that was approved earlier this year include goals to:
 - Establish physical activity breaks for meetings over two hours in length,
- Develop nutrition standards for vending machines, &
- Set standards for foods provided at meetings and other events.
As with twelve other cities and towns in Maryland and Virginia, Charlottesville has been recognized by the HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign for its dedication to wellness. Is your community ready to join the movement? Contact HEAL Cities & Towns to learn how! |
| Tools & Resources | |
Webinar: Creating Healthy Food Access
in Municipal Workplaces One Bite at a Time
Trying to make healthy eating decisions in the workplace can be a challenge when you're up against the candy bowl, vending machine, and break room donuts. Is your municipality ready to make eating healthy at work easier to do? Sponsored by the HEAL Cities and Town Campaign of the Mid-Atlantic, this webinar will cover strategies, resources, and success stories for improving municipal employees' access to healthy foods in the municipal workplace, such as healthy vending, healthy meeting policies, and nutrition standards. Speakers will include subject matter experts and community representatives from around the country.
January 9, 2014
1:30-2:45pm EST
Space is limited.
Reserve your seat by registering here.
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Sincerely,
Marisa Jones
HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign Director
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