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Families whose busy lifestyles include hefty amounts of restaurant dining and the fried food temptations that come with it now have a new option for helping their kids steer clear of the childhood obesity epidemic.

Forrest General Hospital (FGH) is teaming with Hattiesburg area restaurants to offer new healthy food options through the Healthy Kids Menu program. The initiative follows the hospital's growing concern over poor childhood nutrition, said Millie Swan, director of physician and public relations at FGH.

"We're living in a fast food, super sized society that tends to value convenience over nutrition," she said. "We partnered with local restaurants to provide healthy meal options on their children's menus, giving parents the convenience they desire and children the nutrition they need."

Recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the number of overweight children aged two to five years has doubled since the 1970s, tripling in the same time period for children aged 12 to 19 years. The CDC has listed energy intake among contributing factors for overweight and obesity among children, with large portion sizes, eating meals away from home and frequent snacking on energy dense and sugar rich foods at the top of the problem list.

Hamburgers and fried foods can be an easy option for families dining out. But on the Healthy Kids Menus, options range from grilled chicken sandwiches to fruit cups to sugar free cake, pudding and ice cream.

In offering the concept around town, FGH staff received the best response from local, independently owned restaurants, since chains rarely have control over the options on their menus.

Initiated by the public relations office through Forrest General's Spirit of Women program, the special menus were offered beginning in the spring of 2005. The cost of the program is minimal — essentially just a matter of printing the menus in-house — so it was absorbed into the department's budget.

Restaurants taking part initially included Cane Creek Seafood, Chesterfield's, Crechale's, Mike Anderson's Seafood, Seasons and Trapper's Seafood and Deli. Each one worked with FGH to develop its healthy menu options as well as the custom coloring sheet portion of the menu. Local artists, including Kym Garraway and Kim Cox, were invited to design and illustrate the menus.

Since the program began, restaurants have found the program attractive both for the free crayons and coloring menus they receive and for the opportunity to make a positive local impact in the fight against childhood obesity.

FGH staff has also been pleased by how well the program has been received by families dining in the Hattiesburg area. The hospital is encouraging families in the area to request healthier options from their favorite restaurants and urge them to join the program.

"With the increasing epidemic of childhood obesity and diseases such as diabetes and hypertension in children, we're hoping that more restaurants will join us in this movement for improved health through improved nutrition," Swan said.

"It's one thing for us to tell parents to provide proper nutrition for their children, but it's another thing for us to give them the tools to do so."

Forrest General's community outreach efforts also include a newly launched "Family Spirit" program, offering educational events aimed at increasing family wellness and decreasing childhood obesity. The new initiative targets women strategically as the ones who make as many as 85 percent of all household decisions. The program supports the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's "We Can!" initiative and works in partnership with the American Academy of Family Physicians and the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.


January 2007

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