National Eating Healthy Day Hospital Menu Hopes to Become Permanent

Forrest General Hospital of Hattiesburg, MS, teamed up with the American Heart Association on National Eating Healthy Day to promote the AHA's “My Heart, My Life” initiative, reports the Hattiesburg American (link includes a video report). At the event, healthier menu items such as salmon, baked chicken and salad were featured in the hospital cafeteria and all the chip selections were of the baked variety. Meanwhile, low-calorie and diet drinks are now displayed in a more prominent position than the regular drink varieties.

To help educate customers, nutrition labels featuring calorie, sodium and fat intake were posted at several of the stations and representatives from the nutrition departments at Southern Mississippi University and Jones County Junior College discussed nutritional food. Hospital representatives told the paper that they are pushing to make the one-day menu a more permanent thing.