Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett hopes so.  He wants to inspire the residents of his city to be healthier and lose weight.  Mayor Cornett’s appeal is in response to his city listed as of one of the unhealthiest in America.  The OKC Million community challenge to lose a total of 1,000,000 pounds is open to all and everyone is encouraged to join.  Individuals, families, friends, corporations, churches, local organizations, community groups, sports teams, police departments, fire departments and schools are all welcome. 

When Oklahoma City residents join the site www.thiscityisgoingonadiet.com they have access to nutrition information, recipes, weight loss programs and success stories.  Sounds like a recipe for success! 

Watch this report from NBC Nightly News to see how Mayor Cornett’s city is accepting the challenge.

How healthy is your city?

Tags: Nutrition News, diet, obesity, weight loss // Add Comment »

The 82nd Annual Oscar nominations were announced and Food, Inc. is nominated in the documentary (feature) category.  This film has received much critical acclaim and attention since its release in June last year, including a feature on the Oprah show  where she called it “thought provoking” and “eye opening”. 

Food, Inc. brings to light glaring issues of sustainability, food production, and workers rights.  The more people that view the movie the more likely these issues will be brought to the top of both personal and political agendas.  The fact that the Academy Awards has chosen to recognize Food, Inc. is monumental as it will bring even more national attention to this must see film and the concerns it addresses.
 

Tags: Celebrity News, Food // Add Comment »

When you grocery shop do you find labels that tout “Natural Goodness, Kid Approved, Parent Tested, or Doctor Recommended” leading you to believe that the product is a good choice?  Marketers avoid regulation on front of package labels and rely on consumers trust in a name brand product by labeling with misleading phrases. 

How often do you go further in your investigation of what’s inside the package?  Do you stop at the front of the package or do you turn it to the side and read the nutrition facts and ingredients list?  How can we be sure that what we are feeding our families is actually a good choice nutritionally? 

For more information The New York Times Well Blog discusses meaningless claims on food labels, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest published a detailed report.
 

Tags: Food, Nutrition News // Add Comment »

Kids are learning how to cultivate crops, compost, and then cook the food they have grown, through the Edible Schoolyard program.  The program, developed by restaurateur Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, was first introduced at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California. 

The first New York affiliate will be built this summer at P.S. 216 in the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn.  Teachers will use the garden to give students in prekindergarten to fifth grade lessons in art, math, history and science.  The hope is that the school will eventually become a center for the study of the environment and agriculture.

Critics of Edible Schoolyard claim classroom gardens do not help students meet the state standards for English and math; however, we could argue that teaching kids how to grow and cook their own food is an invaluable life lesson.  The Edible Schoolyard program not only does that, but teaches children pertinent issues such as sustainable agriculture, climate change and so much more.

Do you support gardens and kitchens as a vehicle for teaching at schools?  Leave your comments and let us know your thoughts.

Tags: Healthy School Food // 7 Comments »

Dear Friends,

We know that the IIN community is a group of people dedicated to making a difference in the world, but we were blown away by the overwhelming response we received! 

So many of you responded to our call to action and made generous donations—thank you.  Because of your incredible generosity, we collected $25,000 in donations from our community and will match that sum for a combined donation of $50,000 to the Red Cross.  On behalf of each new student who enrolled between January 14 and January 22, we also donated $100 to the Red Cross.

We were inspired by how our graduates mobilized to help the Haiti relief effort:

•    IIN alumni Colleen DeCesare ran a special at her breakfast café in Philadelphia where she collected donations for the Haiti Relief Effort. 

•    Jenny Choi-Fitzpatrick, a 2007 graduate, is working with San Diego-based international humanitarian organization called Project Concern International that is partnering with several aide groups in Haiti to provide immediate rescue and relief services.

•    Dr. Marino, a 2007 graduate, spent one week in Haiti on a medical relief mission with Mt. Sinai Hospital.  As an anesthesiologist, he provided compassionate pain relief & anesthesia to those that suffered traumatic bodily injuries at the National Public Hospital in Port au Prince.

Your generosity will support crucial humanitarian efforts that will aid untold numbers of people affected by the earthquake.  To learn more about how you can help Haiti, visit www.redcross.org or check out this comprehensive list of charities providing aid.  You can keep up-to-date on the crisis in Haiti by following IIN guest speaker Dr. Mark Hyman’s blog while he works to aid the victims there.

Thank you for your heartfelt giving and helping us send relief to the victims in Haiti.

Sincerely,

Institute for Integrative Nutrition

Tags: About IIN, Charitable Organizations // Add Comment »

Since the economic meltdown last year, many people have been forced to reinvent themselves and establish a new career and life.  They were able to transform their misfortune into an opportunity.  Life gave them lemons, so they made lemonade.  They decided to follow their passion and be the change they wanted to see in the world.  Many Integrative Nutrition graduates have made that leap.  Our grads have rewarding health coaching careers, write books, are school food advocates–and are changing the world.  One successful graduate, Michelle Pfennighaus, was recently featured in an independent film, Lemonade.  She told her story about the opportunity to reinvent her life when she was laid off.

Michelle is a 2009 graduate living in the Boston area.  She used to work as an interactive art director at the largest ad agency in New England.  She created websites and web-based advertising for clients like Ocean Spray, Royal Caribbean and Oral-B.  She struggled with the ad agency lifestyle, with long hours and stressful deadlines. Yoga became her release and the way she dealt with anxiety. Through yoga, she gravitated towards thinking about food and how she was feeding her body. That’s when she found Integrative Nutrition.  She’d planned to someday quit her job and follow her passion, but when she got laid off in March of ’09, it all came together more quickly than she ever imagined possible.

Michelle’s health coaching practice is comprised of private and group clients.  She does coaching sessions over the phone and has clients from all of the country and the world. She even works with a woman in Istanbul via Skype.  Michelle says, “It’s an amazing thing to work without geographical boundaries.”   Michelle and Lemonade were featured on the CBS Evening News and the NPR radio show On Point.

To find out more about Michelle visit her website: http://FindYourBalanceHealth.com  and you can follow her on Twitter @MPfennighaus.

You can hear more about Michelle’s practice on January 28th at 5:00 pm on this free webinar.

To view a trailer of Lemonade go to http://lemonademovie.com/

Are you reinventing yourself by following your passion?  Please share your comments to inspire others.

Tags: About Graduates of IIN, Career // 1 Comment »

When Michelle Obama says she wants to make a deeper impact on the issue of childhood obesity, we know she will get things done. The First Lady has been promoting locally-grown food and healthy eating with a vegetable garden, and shops at the farmer’s market blocks away from the White House.

Michelle is striving for a legacy that can affect millions of children today and in the future. Her efforts to bring awareness to the way we eat and the way we feed our children has the potential to end the growing crisis of childhood obesity.

The First Lady spoke to the Conference of Mayors yesterday to enlist help on the front lines.  Her initiative “will involve the federal government working with local officials to provide more nutritious food in schools, allow more opportunities for kids to be physically active and give more communities access to affordable, healthful food.” With 1/3 of kids in America considered obese, this is clearly a problem worthy of national attention.

Cheers to Michelle for making a profound and meaningful impact on the future generation.

Tags: Nutrition News, Politics // 1 Comment »

Is your pantry stocked with Fruit Roll-ups, Goldfish, Twinkies, and Cheez-it’s?  Could you describe your family as “grazers” who walk by the refrigerator or pantry and grab a handful of whatever looks appealing several times a day?  Have parents gotten used to snacks as a way to stop whining or avoid tantrums?  It’s not unusual to see children snacking at recess, after school, before and after sporting events; basically at every extracurricular activity.  Parents are getting bombarded with requests for snacks and quite often the preferred choice is packaged processed foods:  cookies, crackers and sodas. 

With the increase in activities, marketers target busy parents and kids with mini packs of cookies and other junk foods.  This makes it easy for moms to toss into backpacks for afterschool snacks.  The New York Times reports that, “According to the Agriculture Department, American children get 40 percent of their calories from food of poor nutritional quality.” 

Perhaps it’s time to reassess snack time.  Please comment and let us know how your family snacks.

Tags: Food, Nutrition News, diet // 10 Comments »

The New York City Mayor is at it again.  In the past few years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was successful in getting chain restaurants to visibly display calories, and remove trans fats.  Now the Mayor has turned his attention to curbing the salt intake of city residents.

The mayor’s plan, which is voluntary, aims to cut the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant foods in the city by 25 percent over five years.  Since the sodium in salt causes high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, the Mayor’s plan is to improve the overall health of New Yorkers.

It sounds like the Mayor is on the right track in his quest to help New Yorkers get healthy, but will a voluntary plan do the trick?  If “Eighty percent of the salt in Americans’ diets comes from packaged or restaurant food,” as the New York Times reports; is the answer for better health to reduce the salt in those foods or to reduce those foods?

Tags: Nutrition News, diet // 1 Comment »

Dear Friends,

As heartbreaking images of the devastation in Haiti fill our screens and our minds, we are asking everyone in the IIN community–employees, students, alumni, and prospective students– to do whatever you can to help alleviate the immense suffering that is now occurring just hundreds of miles from our shores.

To encourage you to take action, we are offering matching donations immediately. If any IIN employee, alumni, current student or prospective student makes a donation to the Red Cross between now and January 22, simply email your donation confirmation to charity@integrativenutrition.com, and we will match the donation. We delete the receipts immediately and do not hold onto any personal information. We will match up to $25,000 in total donations immediately.

At IIN, we want our students, alumni and prospective students to take action about pressing, urgent issues around the world–and we also want you to know you’re part of an organization that does the same.

To that end, in addition to these matching donations, we are also implementing an emergency donation drive through our enrollments. For any enrollment, between today and the end of next week, we will donate an additional $100 to relief for Haiti.

Reach as deep into your heart as you can and donate generously to Red Cross. Send us the receipt to charity@integrativenutrition.com and we will match it, up to $25,000 in total. Haiti needs us, this very day before night falls again on the people in crisis.

Sincerely,

Joshua Rosenthal
Institute for Integrative Nutrition

Please Share this with your friends.

Tags: Charitable Organizations // Add Comment »