WelCore Health is a health promotion, preventative health and wellness company. Our current service area is North Dakota and Western Minnesota.

Health and Wellness experts will work together with your business to customize a program that incorporates a culture of health and well-being at your workplace.   

Services Offered:

• On-site Vaccinations (businesses, public facilities, social gatherings, churches, etc.)
• Complete Comprehensive Worksite Wellness Programming
• Health Risk Assessments
• Employee & Manager Interest Surveys
• Biometric Testing
• Dietitian Services
• Evidence-Based National Diabetes Prevention Program
• Site Specific Safety Planning
• Worksite Emergency Response Team Training

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CURRENT HEADLINES

                     

BEV BENDA: Tobacco-free parks are fast becoming the norm
Bev Benda – 04/11/2013

GRAND FORKS — Hats off to Molly Soeby of the Grand Forks Park Board, for being “progressive” in her quest to make life better for future generations by promoting tobacco-free parks in Grand Forks.

This is not a “ginormous can of worms,” as one of Soeby’s fellow commissioners suggested. This is a “ginormous opportunity” to make Grand Forks a healthier community, especially for our young people.

We need the Park Board to take this issue seriously and support this idea that is centered on protecting young people from the addiction of tobacco.

While teen smoking is going down for males, chewing tobacco usage is going up. Making matters worse, the tobacco industry spends more than $26 million a day marketing tobacco to youth.

When young people have easy access to tobacco and see it as the “norm,” they are more likely to try it.

Tobacco-free parks are the gold standard nationwide. This is not a new concept and is no more dictatorial than are the signs in the park that say “Drive slow,” “Clean up after your dog” or “Replace your divots on the golf course.”

Every park rule has a rationale, and the public needs education before the rule can become the “norm.”

Tobacco-free parks are safer and cleaner. Consider the litter that tobacco products add to our parks. Some toddlers and puppies will eat anything, even wads of tobacco or cigarette butts on the playground, which are toxic to small bodies.

Most important of all, tobacco-free parks give children one more public place where adults are seen not using tobacco, thus contributing to the “social norming” of healthy lifestyles.

Healthy lifestyles reduce health care costs across the board.

Regarding enforcement, look to the success of the many parks that already have instituted tobacco-free policies, including those in North Dakota: Wahpeton, Langdon, Cando, Beulah, Milnor, Gwinner, Rolette, Forman, Cogswell and most recently, Mayville.

Jamestown’s dog park, Pepper’s Dog Park, opened last year tobacco-free.

Most people will abide with a good conscience when there is good signage placed. No police are required.

Imaginations have run a bit wild with visions of police conducting “mouth checks” at the park; that would be an invasion of privacy, not to mention a poor use of law enforcement time.

Remember: Most people do not even use tobacco.

The Park Board needs to recognize the importance of role-modeling as well; it employs talented coaches and staff, and young people look up to them.

Last year, Bud Selig and Major League Baseball, through the influence of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, tightened the rules on smokeless tobacco through the Knock It Out of the Park campaign after recognizing the influence baseball players have on youth. Even though some baseball players still chew, they cannot do it on the field or in front of the TV camera.

It is time for Grand Forks to follow MLB’s lead, upgrade our community, and knock it out of our parks, too.

Published March 25, 2013, 05:00 AM – Grand Forks Herald

Grand Forks concession stands got healthier (whether you noticed or not)

Healthier food choices are elbowing out less-healthy options at Grand Forks concession stands. And, there’s been almost no negative reaction or loss in revenue.

Healthier food choices are elbowing out less-healthy options at Grand Forks concession stands. And, there’s been almost no negative reaction or loss in revenue.

“I was pretty surprised,” said Bill Palmiscino, superintendent of recreation at the Grand Forks Park District. “We didn’t get beat up as bad as I thought we would.”

Last fall, changes were launched at facilities managed by the park district as well as at high schools.

They ranged from eliminating some items to tweaking ingredients to introducing healthier foods, such as applesauce, fresh fruits, yogurt, low-fat milk and sliced apples with fat-free caramel sauce.

The movement toward healthier living is part of a larger effort by Take Action, a local group headed by park Commissioner Molly Soeby. The group received a $40,000 grant in 2011 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find ways to promote a healthier lifestyle among Grand Cities’ residents.

It’s part of the government’s response to escalating concerns about the decline of Americans’ health, overall, because of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diseases that can be linked to lifestyle.

Gradual changes

Changes in food items at concession stands have been made “incrementally,” said Beth Bouley, the park district’s hockey concessions manager. “You have to crawl before you can walk.”

She started by reading labels, she said, looking for items with less fat and calories.

“I am not a dietician, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know a candy bar with 360 calories is not as healthy as another with 220 calories,” she said

Bouley and her staff selected five candies adults generally like and the same number for kids, she said. “We realized we couldn’t cut candy out entirely — or soda or popcorn.”

Her staff has swapped the oil used in making popcorn from one that’s heavy in trans-fats to the healthier canola oil. Soeby said there were no complaints and no decline in sales.

Instead of ground beef traditionally used in “taco-in-a-bag,” they’ve substituted seasoned ground turkey and added beans.

“I got no heat on that,” Bouley said, “maybe one complaint.”

The move “pushed way up the nutritional value and decreased fat content enormously,” said Soeby.

Cotton candy is no longer sold. Baked chips have replaced fried chips. “I did get a little flak for that,” Bouley said.

So far, the biggest complaint Palmiscino said he has heard is about the absence of Snickers bars, which were eliminated in favor of lower-calorie options. “Snickers must go with hockey,” he said.

Bouley said most changes she has made may not even be noticeable to the public. “They are not earth-shattering. I’ve been doing it gradually.” It’s an effort, she said, “to adapt and rethink what they’re eating.”

Winning allies

Take Action members represent a broad range of business, health care and government organizations, Soeby said.

“When we started looking at healthy choices, we chose only the evidence-based (choices) — those that had been studied across the country and have been shown to make a difference,” she said.

They selected several initiatives, including promoting children’s gardens and restricting tobacco use in parks.

Take Action wants to increase lower-income families’ access to fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets by installing electronic benefits transfer, or EBT, machines, which facilitate purchase with food stamps.

The group is working with restaurants to promote meals with reduced portion size, fat and sodium content and highlight foods that are nutrient-dense, such as whole grain breads, fruits, vegetables, low-fat milk and cheese, and lean protein.

Several restaurants have expressed an interest in participating with her group, Soeby said, and plan to apply Take Action stickers to items that qualify as the healthiest choices on their menus.

Leaders of Grand Forks high schools’ booster clubs have also initiated changes in concessions sold at their athletic events.

Red River High School boosters added several healthy items to the menu. After a tournament last fall, club President Brenda Rosendahl reported to Take Action that “apples
were a big hit, the (low-fat) chocolate milk did OK and the string cheese did not sell. The frozen fruit smoothie, ‘Fruitchi,’ sells very well.”

Central High School boosters also added healthy items. After a December event, club President Doreen Rolshoven, reported that all but one of the 25 salads available sold, low-fat chocolate milk, yogurt and string cheese also sold out.

Snickers rebellion

For the record, the park district has held firm in the face of the “great Snickers rebellion,” Soeby said. “We didn’t bring Snickers back. People were not very happy about that.”

She said she is “very proud of the park district because, quite frankly, (these changes) at first were not viewed very promisingly. People like junk food.”

Now, at concession stands, she’s pleased to hear someone say, “Oh my word, you have a salad!”

Bouley said this shift toward healthier food options are in keeping with the park district’s mission of promoting health and fitness.

But “it’s a big change for the atmosphere of a sporting event,” she said. “It’s a slow, gradual education.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Contact Information

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Molly Soeby, Owner
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molly@welcorehealth.com

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