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Amanda Rupp | Apr 24, 2016

AHA, Aramark launch hew community health engagement program for underserved communities

Leaders at the American Heart Association (AHA) as well as Aramark recently initiated a new community health engagement program that is designed to improve the diet and health of people living in underserved communities.

The program is a branch of Healthy for Life 20 By 20 Commitment. It will be a test program that will evaluate the best ways to implement the program on a nationwide scale throughout the U.S.

Three cities — Chicago, Philadelphia, and Houston — will feature the program. The goal is to improve millions of Americans’ diets and health by the year 2020. The program will happen during this spring.

“Less than two percent of all Americans meet the AHA’s definition of ideal cardiovascular health due primarily to poor diet," Penny Kris-Etherton, Professor of Nutrition at Penn State, an American Heart Association volunteer, and a world-renowned cardiovascular nutrition expert, said. "By bringing this high impact program to underserved communities and educating people to make healthier food and lifestyle choices, we hope to watch alarming statistics like this one eventually fade away.” 

Expert analysts will take the data from the program to measure how the behaviors and attitudes of single mothers as well as single heads of households change when it comes to food and meal choices for families.

“We continue to make measurable progress with Healthy for Life 20 By 20 and are excited to launch this next important phase of the initiative to help build a culture of health at the individual, community and national levels,” Eric J. Foss, Aramark Chairman, President and CEO, said. “Our goal is to use the learnings from this pilot program to impact the health and well-being of tens of thousands of families in underserved communities across the country.”

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