Campus dining program empowers healthy lifestyle choices

EOU file photo

Campus dining program empowers healthy lifestyle choices 

Contact: Kelsey Skeen
541-962-3566 | skeen-kelsey@aramark.com

November 12, 2013
LA GRANDE, Ore. – EOU Dining/ARAMARK is launching Healthy for Life™, a comprehensive and integrated approach to health and wellness that features healthy food choices, nutrition education and wellness programs that work together to support healthier lifestyles.

“Students are thinking differently about their menu choices and are actively seeking information about how nutrition impacts their health,” said Monir Desouky, Food Service director for EOU Dining/ARAMARK. “Healthy for Life™ helps students gain a better understanding of food, and empowers them to make the choices that will ultimately help them live healthier lives.”

Healthy for Life™ includes menus featuring lower calorie, lower fat, whole grain and vegetarian or vegan choices, as well as a variety of tools, programs and events designed to make it easy for students to select balanced food choices and learn how they can establish and maintain life-long healthy eating habits.

From a smartphone app and menu labeling to a dining hall Wellness Center, some of the program elements include:

• CampusDish™ Nutrition Smartphone App: This free tool can be downloaded by smartphone users to quickly search and view menus by location, item and nutritional content.
• Healthy for Life™ Wellness Center:  Located in the Mountie Café in the Hoke Union Building, this digital wellness center serves as a central location for nutrition and wellness information on campus.
• Just4U Nutrition Messaging: This menu labeling system features colorful, easy to identify leaf shaped icons to alert students to foods that are low in fat; 500 calories or less; organic; locally grown; low sodium; steamed and more.
• Special Events and Promotions: Throughout the school year, onsite health fairs and healthy food sampling events will take place to continuously encourage students to eat well.

On more than 30 college and university campuses where the program was piloted, ARAMARK found that Healthy for Life™ helped students gain a better understanding of food and empowered them to make balanced food choices. Feedback from participants at pilot locations indicated that it works because it is a lifestyle – not a diet – program.

ARAMARK Healthy for Life™ builds on proprietary research as well as global health trends that focus on wellness, good nutrition and healthy lifestyles. More than 75 percent of students surveyed by ARAMARK Higher Education* in the past year indicated they are striving to be careful about what they eat and want to know how to make better nutrition and lifestyle choices.

*ARAMARK Fall 2012 DiningStyles™, Survey Size: 148,000 college students