Eating Well While Dining Out: Collaborating with Local Restaurants to Promote Heart Healthy Menu Items

Abstract

Background As Americans commonly consume restaurant foods with poor dietary quality, effective interventions are needed to improve food choices at restaurants. Purpose To design and evaluate a restaurant-based intervention to help customers select and restaurants promote heart healthy menu items with healthful fats and high quality carbohydrates. Methods The intervention included table tents outlining 10 heart healthy eating tips, coupons promoting healthy menu items, an information brochure, and link to study website. Pre and post intervention surveys were completed by restaurant managers and customers completed a brief “intercept” survey. Results Managers (n = 10) reported the table tents and coupons were well received, and several noted improved personal nutrition knowledge. Overall, 4214 coupons were distributed with 1244 (30%) redeemed. Of 300 customers surveyed, 126 (42%) noticed the table tents and of these, 115 (91%) considered the nutrition information helpful, 42 (33%) indicated the information influenced menu items purchased, and 91 (72%) reported the information will influence what they order in the future. Discussion The intervention was well-received by restaurant managers and positively influenced menu item selection by many customers. Translation to Health Education Practice Further research is needed to assess effective strategies for scaling up and sustaining this intervention approach.

Facilitating Healthier Eating at Restaurants: A Multidisciplinary Scoping Review Comparing Strategies, Barriers, Motivators, and Outcomes by Restaurant Type and Initiator

“…The majority of sources (n = 141) described strategies that were initiated by restaurants 144,145,164,, in mostly gray literature and media sources, with three exceptions [145,164,168]. The rest (n = 30) described changes that were investigator-led, as part of nutrition-healthy eating focused intervention studies [111,[137][138][139][140][141][142][143][144][146][147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154][155][156][157][158][159][160][161][162][163][165][166][167].…”

“…Fewer sources focused on independently owned restaurants (n = 27) [46,47,56,60,69,111,121,133,137,138,[140][141][142][144][145][146][147][148][149]152,157,159,[163][164][165]167,168], describing changes initiated by restaurants (n = 10) and investigators (n = 17). A few sources addressed both types of restaurants (n = 12) [43,45,86,93,102,150,151,155,158,161,162,185], with an even split by initiator. While most sources presented strategies that were implemented, a few (n = 19) described restaurantinitiated planned changes or pledges in corporate restaurants [34,53,74,77,80,82,90,98,…”

“…The other motivating forces were grouped as following: personal factors, top-down pressure, or external, mostly related to food sourcing (2%) [88,94]. The second most common motivation was the desire to improve community health (27%) [23,35,43,46,47,55,56,60,66,68,74,75,82,87,90,94,95,104,110,121,126,133,141,142,145,148,159,161,164,168,183,184,189,191,192], followed by responding to public health criticism (22%) [25,27,30,34,37,44,45,49,66,67,71,84,112,120,122,124,127,131,132,134,140,170,173,174,177,18 0,186,188,190] (Table 2).…”

“…When changes were initiated by restaurants, meeting perceived customer demand was the main motivation (60%) [23,24,26- [23,35,43,46,47,55,56,60,66,68,74,75,82,87,90,94,95,104,110,121,126,133,145,164,168,183,184,189,191,192] and addressing public health criticism (23%) [25,27,30,34,37,44,45,49,66,67,71,84,112,120,122,124,127,131,132,134,170,173,174,177,180,18 6,188,190] (Table 2). In sources addressing investigator-led changes, the motivations also included a desire to improve community health (56%) [141,142,148,159,161], followed by seeing the participation in the intervention as an opportunity to promote the business (44%) [140,143,144,155], as a common incentive provided for restaurants to participate in health promoting interventions.…”

TAS2R38 Predisposition to Bitter Taste Associated with Differential Changes in Vegetable Intake in Response to a Community-Based Dietary Intervention

“…Moreover, these activities likely contributed to the high enrollment of African Americans in the genomics arm of the HHL study. In addition to the genomics and lifestyle counseling components of the study, HHL sought to address heart health disparities by increasing access to healthy foods; promoting knowledge of heart healthy choices through a collaboration with local restaurants that included information on healthful menu items and a coordinated monthly newspaper column with information on healthy eating ( Thayer et al 2017 ); and enhancing clinical care for hypertension in the Lenoir community ( Halladay et al 2013 ; Cené et al 2017 ). These strategies were designed to address behavioral and environmental factors that drive heart health disparities in a rural NC population.…”