The School of Nutrition and Health Promotion hosted the seventh annual Building Healthy Lifestyles conference this weekend. The School of Nutrition’s Ph.D. students coordinated the conference to translate research and practice of nutrition, physical activity and wellness to promote lifestyle changes, while highlighting the Phoenix Public Market and Farmers Market as real-world examples.
The two-day conference, titled “Changing Environments, Shaping Lives” and held at the Memorial Union at ASU’s Tempe campus, included health professionals and advocates such as Michele Simon, author of “Eat Drink Politics,” Laura Cohen, who discussed the Rails-to-Trails national movement, and Mark Jacobs, dean of Barrett, the Honors College, to discuss the history of human food.
Janet Poppendieck, author of “Free for All: Fixing School Food in America” and the conference keynote speaker, addressed the growing concern of low-quality food in public schools.
“If children are always consuming hyper-processed foods in school, they lose the ability to appreciate whole foods,” she said. “We need to fully experience the food we put in our mouth.”
With seven billion lunches being served in U.S. schools each year, Poppendieck advocated lowering food waste and increased consumer responsibility in finding renewable resources.
“In New York City, we use enough styrofoam plates a day to stack them two miles high,” she said.
With encouragement to become more sustainable, she emphasized the message of teaching children to make healthy eating habits, which will affect their future food choices and long-term health.
School of Nutrition and Health Promotion assistant professors Matt Buman and Eric Hekler presented their current project on using technology to improve the Phoenix Public Market. They described how using tablet computers allows public market shoppers to give direct feedback through pictures, voice comments and GPS. This data will then be used to identify what the customers enjoyed about the public market and what they perceived as potential barriers that would cause them to not come back.
Through the project’s collected data, Buman and Hekler hope to improve the Phoenix Public Farmers Market and increase the amount of returning shoppers.
Ph.D. candidates within the School of Sustainability presented abstracts on how they are improving the downtown Phoenix Garfield community by planting community gardens and empowering the community to change their environment through workshops.
School of Nutrition and Health Promotion assistant professor Christopher Wharton discussed sustainable food choices while focusing on the environment, health and food security.
“We like to think that we have individual food choices, but so many of our choices of how, what and even when we eat is dictated by the food system,” he said.
Focusing on the growing popularity of farmers markets, Wharton said he believes that local markets are helping people eat healthier.
“The local food movement is for increasing access to local and healthy, whole foods,” Wharton said. “It is not often when people get excited about eating fruits and vegetables.”
Contact the reporter at mrinck@asu.edu
