Tag Archives: health fair

Display of the Month: Portion Control

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Portion Control Table
The Nutrition Education Store Display of the Month fun continues this month with a spotlight on portion control!

Portion control is vital, and so many of my health educator friends say that it is near and dear to their hearts. Proper portion control can have far-reaching health effects, but it’s tougher than it appears at first glance. With all the oversized portions crowding coffee shop displays and restaurant plates, how are people even supposed to know what a healthful portion looks like?

That’s where a Portion Control Display comes in.

I’ve studied and studied the resources at my disposal, and I think the following plan would make a great portion control display for your next event…

The Materials:

The Activities:

  • Walk everyone through some meal and snack transformations.
  • Strategize about ways to scale down portions.

Portion Control TableLet’s talk details!

Set up your display area with a table. Top it with a tablecloth if you have one. Put the easel on the table, then place the Scale Down Your Portions poster on top of the easel and make sure that it’s easy to see. Place the Take Control of Your Portions banner on its stand in a highly-visible spot next to your table. Fan out a few Portion Control brochures near the front of your table, where they’ll be easier to grab. At another free area in the front of your table, arrange some MyPlate Temporary Tattoos and some Salad Temporary Tattoos. These will serve as prizes for the activities.

And speaking of activities, here’s what you’ll need to do.

For the meal transformation section, use a bit of blue painter’s tape and some plain white paper to cover the “made over” meals on the Take Control of Your Portions banner. Review the number of calories in the large value meal featured on the poster. Is this a healthful meal? Why or why not? Ask volunteers to brainstorm ways to “make over” the meal to make it more balanced and less calorically-dense. Offer temporary tattoos to anyone who shares a good answer. Remove the painter’s tape and paper from the “made over” meal on the banner. How does this one differ from the first meal? How can it be replicated in real life? Repeat the process with the chip and muffin images on the banner.

The second activity is more free form.

Have some volunteers share a few foods with which they have trouble controlling portions. Brainstorm as a group — what’s a good way to bring the portions back under control? You can also share strategies from some of the many portion control blog posts we’ve written over the years — here are a few of the current favorites…

And there you have it! Another fun display idea for the the Nutrition Education Store Display of the Month series.

And here are a few more display resources from the Nutrition Education Store. Which ones will make your life easier?

Display Kit: Color Your World with Food Display Kit: Take 10K Steps Each Day

Display Kit: Make Your Salad a Rainbow

PS Here’s a free PDF handout (from the blog post 3 Ways to Improve Portion Control) that you can also use in your display…

New Portion Control Ideas

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Display of the Month: Sugar

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Set Up Your Display!Let’s start a new tradition, shall we?

Today I want to usher in a brand-new series — the Nutrition Education Store Display of the Month! Each month, we’ll take a look at a new way to display the most important information about a key topic. And, we’ll do it in a way that will engage your clients and make your lessons memorable. What do you think? Are you intrigued?

For the first display, I want to focus on sugar. Here’s what I think will come together to make the best option…

The Materials:

The Activities:

  • Guess how many lollipops would go into a large soda from a fast food chain.
  • Discuss the impact of added sugars on health.

Let’s talk details!

Set up your display area with a table. For an extra aesthetic bonus, cover your table with a plain white tablecloth. Put any chairs you might need behind the table (this comes in handy if you’re manning a booth at a wellness fair — it’s less necessary for a single presentation). On the table, arrange the sugar test tubes wherever you see fit. Add a cardboard easel to hold up a poster for easy viewing, then place the Are You Drinking Candy? poster on top of that easel. Find a spot for the prizes you’ll be handing out — in this case bookmarks and stickers that encourage water consumption over sugary drinks. For the last part of the tablescape, grab a large empty cup from a fast food chain of your choosing and keep it within easy reach. You may also want to have a handful or two of small lollipops. Next to your table, place the Beverage banner on its stand in a place that’s easy for all your participants to see.

Once you’re all set up, you can proceed to the activities.

For the first activity, hold up the large soda container. Ask people to guess how many teaspoons of sugar go into a sugary drink that would fit in this container. Since most lollipops also contain a teaspoon of sugar, you can ask your participants to guess how many lollipops would equal the amount of sugar in one large soda instead. Poll the group, then reveal the answer: on average, a large soda from a fast food chain contains 51 grams of sugar. That’s 12 and 3/4 teaspoons of sugar! (Or, if you’re using lollipops, that’s 12 and 3/4’s lollipops worth of sugar). Hand out prizes to the people whose guesses were closest to that total.

For the second activity, it’s time to talk about the impact of added sugars on health. Introduce information from MyPlate and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, explaining why moderation is so important when it comes to added sugars. It may also be useful to bring in some of these additional resources…

Additional Resources:

Here are a few blog posts with great handouts, charts, and information about sugar.

And there you have it! The first-ever display of the month! What do you think?

Oh, and here’s a closer look at a few of the resources we highlighted in today’s post. Remember, at the Nutrition Education Store, we’re here to help you look your very best, right now!

Sugar Test Tubes

Handout: Are You Drinking Candy?

Water Bookmarks

PS: Here’s a free PDF handout that you can also incorporate into your display!

Sugar Reduction Handout

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Health Fairs on a Budget

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Today, it’s storytime.

$50 DisplayThe story to follow is all about how one reader put together a health fair display booth on a tight deadline with an even tighter budget. I want to share her success with you! Maybe this information helps you save money on your next program. Maybe it inspires you to create your own great resources. Maybe it’s just a fun blog post to read before you get back to your next agenda item. Whatever the case may be, I thought that this story was too awesome not to share.

So let’s get to it.

A few weeks ago, a long-time reader at a food bank called me up and asked about putting together a health fair package on a budget. She had $50, tons of great plans, and one week to pull everything off.

Let’s start with the health fair tools we picked. The budget display kit was made up of…

The first thing to go into this display kit was the 100-Calorie Snack poster. It comes with a free handout, so our intrepid reader had two tools in her arsenal right off the bat. She also has an easel to help show off the poster at her booth. This eye-catching poster came to her attention through the Displays by Design program, which she loved. You can use this feature to look through products by design rather than subject matter, which in turn can help you select resources that look good together.

Next up were stickers and bookmarks. The Fruit and Veggie stickers were too eye-catching to miss, and who could say no to amazing bookmarks?

The next part of her display were free handouts. The Free Handout Program was a good place to start, and the weekly free handouts that are part of the Email Program could also be used to round out a health fair display. Handouts are great for building visual appeal and for offering “take-home” reminders of key health lessons. They’re perfect for a wide variety of audiences, and can be just the inspiration your clients need to make a change in their lives.

Oh, and speaking of free resources, the health-fair planner couldn’t pass up the myriad recipes in the Food and Health Free Recipe Archive. These also made great handouts. They could also be used in a cooking demo or to make tasty samples to draw more traffic to a health fair booth.

But wait, there’s more! Although we’ve now covered all the items on the budget health fair booth list above, our intrepid reader had a few last tools up her sleeve. She kept the booth on budget by taking advantage of the free shipping I offered, and she also found the discount code link lurking at the bottom of the store page. This code saved her 10% off the entire order!

When we finished talking about the program, she laughed with relief and told me that all her stress was gone for the first time since she heard about the project. Now she had everything she needed.

What a great day!

By Judy Doherty, PC II

Displays are key to fun health fairs, and there are tons of great resources in the Nutrition Education Store! Which one will make your life easier?

Change It Up Poster

Wellness Fair Kit

MyPlate Stickers

Food Safety Poster

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A Thank You from Tennessee Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

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Are you making the most of the free resources that Food and Health offers to health and nutrition educators?

This is the free bookmark we offered for the auction.The Tennessee Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics did.

When they were putting together a silent auction to raise money for their scholarship fund, Marilyn C. Holmes, MS, RD, LDN, State Fundraising Chair of the Tennessee Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics and Shelley Flint, Executive Director of the Tennessee Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics remembered the program from Food and Health Communications that supports health professionals.

After connecting with us, they found themselves the happy recipients of several free nutrition education posters and enough MyPlate bookmarks for each attendee. We even threw in some copies of Home Run Cooking, our popular guide to healthful and easy meals. All of these materials were very well-recieved by their target audience, and Food and Health Communications helped the Tennessee Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics exceed their fundraising goal.

After the event, Marilyn and Shelly wrote to us, saying…

“Thank you and Food and Health Communications for donating the great Home Run cookbooks to our silent auction. As you might guess with a room full of registered dietitians, these books were well received and valued. Thanks to you and others for your generosity, we were able to go over our goal of $1000, for our scholarship fund. Thank you again for adding to the success of our annual meeting. We truly appreciate you for your contribution.”

Shelly followed up after that email to add…

“I am adding on to my previous email to send an extended great thanks for the posters and coupons. They were presented as door prizes and were well received. I received one of your wonderful posters last year and have used it on numerous occasions this year. You certainly are appreciated for your generosity and giving to the Tennessee Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.”

So, what are you waiting for? If you haven’t availed yourself of the free poster program for dietitian meetings, do it now!

(Remember, this program is just for professionals, not consumers).

And, of course, there are tons of amazing wellness materials in the Nutrition Education Store. Check out some of these top sellers…

Actual MyPlate Plate

Actual MyPlate Plate

MyPlate Poster

12 Lessons of Diabetes Program

Kit: Wellness Fair for Kids

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