energize your meetings! Amy Ellings, Nutrition Consultant Nutrition and Physical Activity Program 236-3754

Hmmm… Is there anyone in this room who likes to eat healthy at least once in a while? Can you think of a time when you were at work and wanted to grab a healthy snack or eat a healthy meal, but didn’t? Why didn’t you? (temptation of unhealthy foods, couldn’t find anything healthy) “where’s Snacko” -- Can anyone find the healthy snack? The point is that in our daily lives, each of us makes choices-- wanting to eat healthy, and knowing what is healthy are important. BUT we make those choices within our surroundings, within our environment. It was not easy to eat healthy from this vending machine.

Environmental change— Make it easy to be healthy Which street makes it easier to be active? An environmental change is a change in the surroundings that we live in. Our goal is to make it easy to be active and eat healthy within the environment. Environmental changes effect a lot of people whereas a class will effect very few.

Environmental change— Make it easy to be healthy Which meeting makes it easier to eat healthy? Here is the message to deliver to your management team: Changing the food environment is all about making the healthy choice the easy choice—and simply giving people the option to eat healthy. We don’t want to take choices away from people; we want to give them more choices. We want to make sure that people have access to healthy foods.

Policy change— Get it in writing Make the change sustainable “Encourages” people to take action Influence more people A worksite policy in a worksite is a rule that the organization agrees upon in their policy-making process and puts in writing. Our job is to get those policy makers engaged in this. How is policy change related to environmental change? It is important to use policy to make sure that the changes in the environment stick even after the current decision makers are gone. A lot of times you cannot make an environment change until you have a policy—which encourages managers and others to implement Why is it important to change policies? Effect even more people than just an environmental change due to the sustainability Encourages people to take action Influence a lot of people

You will not be alone in working on environment and policy in your workplace. All around WA, people and organizations are working on making WA’s people healthier through environment and policy change. It is important for your management team to know that creating these changes is part of a larger effort in WA. These types of changes are outlined in WA’s Nutrition & Physical Activity State Plan. The Plan calls for collaborating and partnering in order to make this work happen– which is exactly the type of work you as wellness coordinators do. You can find out more about the plan at the website. When you start to work on policy and environment changes in your workplace, you can become partners of the plan, and receive web updates of what people around the state are doing to make WA a healthier place. I brought pledge cards if anyone is interested in becoming a partner of the plan. www.doh.wa.gov/cfh/NutritionPA/

Why nutrition? Eat at work 10-20 times a week Increase productivity So, why are we working on nutrition at the workplace? Well, for one, we eat at work 10-20 times a week. Lets say you get a bag of chips each day at work. You would eat baked if they were there, but they are not. So you get an additional 40 calories a day from the regular chips—mainly calories from fat. So how many additional calories in a week? (200 kcal a week) in a year? (9600 kcal in a year) If you don’t burn it off, that = about 2.5# in weight gain in a year Also, eating high sugar, low nutrient food tires you out more quickly than eating foods with nutrients that don’t get absorbed so quickly– like yogurt and nuts. So if you eat a yogurt parfait, you get a burst of energy from the fruit and then more sustainable energy from the yogurt and the granola or nuts. But the donut and coffee is just giving you that quick burst, but none of the sustainable energy so you get tired or in my case cranky. 8AM 8:30AM 9AM

Worksite nutrition environment Have a farmers market or farm stand near work or an on-site garden Encourage healthy foods at potlucks Use competitive pricing to make healthier choices more economical Offer healthy foods in cafeterias vending machines, common areas So what are some ways we can work on nutrition environments in our workplaces? (Read slide) The policy and environment change we will be talking about today is adopting a policy to implement healthy meeting guidelines at meetings and events. Adopt a policy for healthy meeting guidelines

Created by nutrition professionals This guide was Created by nutrition professionals Informed by scientific advice national organizations Designed using extensive feedback from administrative staff Created by nutrition professionals Informed by scientific advice national organizations Designed using feedback from administrative staff

Why EYM? Why now? Current environment not healthy at all meetings Governor’s initiative to make Washington the healthiest state Washington Wellness risk reduction priority areas – focus on nutrition environment Washington State Nutrition and Physical Activity Plan Wanted to make it sustainable change through policy adoption - Need for healthier meetings - Political will (Governor’s Healthiest State in the Nation; Washington Wellness) - State plan provides context - Best practice to make it a policy

Small group activities Rate your lunch Rate your most recent meeting To familiarize ourselves with Energize Your meetings, we are going to have two small group activities.

Making policy at DOH We’re going to do a 5 minute activity before we get started. Without talking, I’d like everyone to arrange themselves in a circle in order the Month and day you were born. Again– no talking. January 1 starts here. You have 3 minutes to do this activity. What do you think is the main point of this exercise? Communication– in order to do your jobs as wellness coordinators, you have to be Communication Professionals, and be able to communicate with all different types of people effectively. Now, The DOH Wellness Coordinatro-- Robbi Kay --is going to share some of the guiding principles that she used to get this policy made.

Selling the program Administrative staff Management Do your homework No surprises The right team What is the most important group to sell on this project? Administrative staff Before you go to the management team, you have to know that the admin staff is going to be able to implement the guidelines

The right team

The right team Wellness coordinator constructed team, set meetings, prepped management, coordinated messages NPA program developed and presented on material Health and Productivity team adopted EYM into their strategic plan Procurement office supported effort, researched cost, developed evaluation tool DOH policy committee discussed and approved policy changes

The process Making EYM a reality at DOH What are some lessons learned? Procurement Policy What are some lessons learned? We are lucky to have one of the team members here today to talk about two of the different processes that needed to happen in order to get the policy made. Diane Offord is the Chief Administrator, Financial Services Division commonly referred to as Procurement. She also sits on the Policy Committee.

Small group activity What would be the major challenge to implementing Energize Your Meetings? How could you and your team overcome that challenge? Report out