Editor’s Note: Partner Spotlight is a monthly series highlighting the organizations/companies that work with PHA to make healthy choices easier. Find other installments here.
It started with a food journal for her eight-year-old daughter. Dr. Victoria Rogers recorded donut holes for answering a question in math, ice cream soda after a softball game, and rice crispy treats during halftime at a soccer game.
“As a mom, I thought it was a crazy amount of unhealthy food that was being given to my kids by teachers, coaches, and everyone else as rewards,” said Rogers. “It’s all done with good intentions, but it adds up.”
Rogers was used to seeing children in her pediatric clinic who suffered from diabetes and other health issues because they were overweight or obese. Seeing the obstacles to healthy choices her kids faced every day made her realize the issue was about more than personal choice.
She believes that the culture and environment surrounding kids can help them make healthier choices. Her passion for children’s health inspired her to support healthy changes at MaineHealth, which received PHA’s Healthier Future Award earlier this year.
After partnering with PHA on October 2, 2012, MaineHealth’s primary goal was to offer healthier meal options in hospital facilities for visitors and staff. Their commitment to PHA’s Hospital Healthier Food Initiative has made healthier choices available to more than 12,000 children, 173,000 adults, and 13,000 employees within its system each year.
Rogers is delighted to have participated in the sweeping changes to MaineHealth’s system, including an increase in the number of healthier options in hospital cafeterias, adding calorie counts to menus, and ensuring that healthy meals are affordable.
“In health care, we have the opportunity to role model healthy behaviors in the clinics and hospitals we work in,” said Rogers. “This work can’t be done by one person, it takes a village.”
Rogers explained that this work isn’t done by just the directors or doctors, but that it’s also done by the chefs, dietitians, servers, and cashiers who develop and explain the healthier options and sell them to customers.
“These teams are the critical ingredient to make healthy changes happen across a big system like MaineHealth,” said Rogers.
On a recent visit to the cafeteria, she witnessed the impact of these changes. A hospital visitor praised a young man serving hot food and said it was some of the best food she’d eaten in her life. The woman had been in the hospital visiting her sick mother for the last month and she thanked the server for helping her take healthier eating habits home.
“It’s not about one meal,” said Rogers. “That woman felt that the hospital meals were nurturing her through a very difficult time and then she was making similar changes to her cooking at home. That’s what this is about.”
Rogers is excited about the changes to MaineHealth cafeterias and looks forward to supporting one of their next goals around making healthy, local foods more accessible by connecting school and hospital nutrition programs.
“Everyone needs to be invested,” said Rogers. “It takes an entire community to make the healthy choice the easy choice.”
Thank you Dr. Rogers and the entire team at MaineHealth for making the healthy choice a little bit easier for the thousands of people you touch each year.
* Dr. Victoria Rogers is a pediatrician with the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center, a member of MaineHealth.
