HEAL (Healthy Eating, Active Living) Idaho

The HEAL Idaho Network envisions communities where the healthy choice is the easy choice, fostered through collaboration and partnership. Each subcommittee is led by an agency dedicated to statewide health improvement and focused in one specific area.

Subcommittee leads provide subject matter expertise by considering the applications of goals and actions through their cultural lens and conducting hands-on work to strengthen the HEAL Idaho framework. Each subcommittee helps develop statewide relationships and partnerships that will support an environment to influence policy development, cultural change, and the elimination of health disparities.

HEAL Idaho members help develop and review subcommittee strategic directives and goals, and provide recommended actions.

HEAL members have the opportunity to connect with each other through annual regional meetings and a statewide summit. These meetings allow for networking, education sharing, and working sessions to generate specific activities and methods for leveraging resources at the local level.

Collectively, HEAL members work together to make progress on making the healthy choice the easy choice in their communities. Together, through networking, sharing of information, and leveraging resources, we can achieve so much more.

Mission: To provide tools, innovation and inspiration in work-site wellness by acting as a conduit for best practice strategies and a catalyst for employers to create a corporate culture of health. 

Purpose: To provide a forum for local employers to learn about best practice workplace wellness strategies and connect with other local businesses.

About inspire!: Culture and environment are powerful influences on behavior. Since most adults spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else, it makes sense to make the workplace one that embraces a culture of wellness. To do that, employers are consistently looking for creative ways to:

• Engage employees in health and wellness programs
• Maintain a productive workforce
• Mitigate the rising costs of healthcare

That's where we come in. inspire! is a network of professional who come together to share and learn best practice workplace wellness strategies. Our key goals are to:

• Provide inspire! network members with best practice workplace wellness resources around health and wellness in the workplaces
• Host a quarterly forum for inspire! members to come together to share ideas and learn from industry experts
• Collaborate and network with organizations that also value workplace wellness

Mission: Our desire is that Long Live Idaho will inspire Idahoans to live healthier, more active lives by increasing the awareness and access to free, research based information on proper nutrition and physical activity.
 
Purpose:  Develop and maintain a network of partners to provide consistent lifestyle messaging that improves the health of all Idahoans.

About Long Live Idaho: A need for consistent statewide messaging in Idaho to promote healthy eating and active living was identified at the Creating Healthy Communities Summit in 2014. In response, the University of Idaho, Eat Smart Idaho Southern District, assembled a committee of Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) members to work on developing statewide healthy lifestyle messages. In October 2014, they received the funding for this project and met with Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, and members of the (HEAL) network. Over 20 partners have joined the committee and have been meeting since January 2015.  In May of 2015, a marketing agency was contracted by Eat Smart Idaho to provide professional marketing services for this exciting project. The agency was able to conduct focus groups and to identify what kind of messaging and venues would be best to promote healthy lifestyle messaging in Idaho.  Thus the Long Live Idaho campaign was born, to provide consistent healthy lifestyle messaging to be used statewide. 

Visit to Long Live Idaho to find out more information and to receive a link to download Long Live Idaho materials!

Mission: Develop and maintain an active, engaged and collaborative network of partners working together to positively impact youth wellness across the state of Idaho.

Purpose: 

• Amplify efforts
• Support others
• Share funding, information and resources

Potential Activities/Projects: 

• Promote partner youth wellness programs and initiatives
• Increase access and participation in schools meals, with a specific focus on closing the gap in participation in school breakfast programs
• Increase access to nutrient-rich snacks and food at school (vending, school stores, concessions, etc) and at home
• Increase the quality and quantity of physical education and activity opportunities for youth
• Support events and annual conferences focused on youth wellness

About Idaho Dairy Council: Idaho Dairy Council (IDC) is passionate in the work they do for Idaho's dairy farm families because they care about feeding the world with safe and nutritious food. IDC works to be conveners for youth wellness and bring organizations together. We inspire trust in dairy as a foundation for wellness. We are proud to provide continuing education opportunities, grants/funding opportunities and scientific, research-based curriculum and resources, at no-cost to Idaho's health and education professionals state-wide. 

For more information visit https://www.dairywest.com and follow us on Twitter @idahodairy.

Purpose: Develop and maintain an active, engaged and collaborative network of partners working together to strengthen local and regional food systems and assuring access for all Idahoans regardless of income.

Mission: The Idaho Hunger Relief Task Force envisions that in a state as abundant as Idaho hunger will not exist and works to put public and private resources into action statewide in order to eliminate hunger and provide food security for all Idahoans.

Projects/Activities:
● Host the Biennial Hunger and Food Security Summit.
● Cultivate Idaho Initiative - rural community food security.
● Conduct food security screenings in health clinic settings.
● Develop community food security assessments.
● Promote and support Senior meal programs.
● Strengthen local food systems through Food Stamp access.  

Community Food Security
Broadly, Community Food Security (CFS) represents a subset of food security that is oriented around the community level rather than the regional, national, or global levels. Cohen and Burt (1989) argued that unlike hunger, which is experienced by individuals, food insecurity is experienced by communities; therefore, community food security more accurately embodies the broader system or landscape that leads to hunger and pinpoints the conditions needed to prevent hunger and other consequences like malnutrition. CFS also complements the broad scope of anti-hunger work by more explicitly accounting for the complex interplay of social, political, and economic forces that influence food production and acquisition (Bellows and Hamm, 2002).  

The concepts of ‘Food Justice’ and ‘Food Sovereignty’ have overlap and relationship to Community Food Security. To learn more about Community Food Security in the U.S. visit John Hopkins Center for a Liveable Future and read the article on "Community Food Security in the United States: A Survey of the Scientific Literature", April 01, 2015 CLF Report.

For more information visit www.idahohunger.org

"...for communities to thrive, trails and other safe walking and bicycling opportunities are absolutely essential."¹

Active transportation helps all people to be more active and benefits people in all communities. Prioritizing and investing in active transportation enables residents in all kinds of communities to be more physically active throughout their daily routines, whether they live in small rural towns or larger urban centers. A connected network of walking and bicycling infrastructure ensures people can access work, school, shopping, healthcare, transit, and recreation opportunities without relying solely on roads and access to a motor vehicle.

Activities that support active communities:

• Advocate for Safe Routes to School programs that support and enable children to walk and bike to school safely. 
• Accommodate all users of the roadway with safe street design, such as "complete streets." This includes sidewalks, bike lanes, and shared use of roadways through signage. 
• Develop a connected infrastructure of trails, sidewalks, and bike lanes to support safe walking and bicycling to public parks and recreation areas, libraries, grocery stores, business centers, and other public spaces.
• Promote and facilitate the increased use of active modes of transportation (walking, cycling, skating) to improve the health and wellness of the community.
• Develop public education, promotional and safety programs for people walking and bicycling.
• Develop way-finding signage, maps, and other visual cues to direct pedestrians and bicyclists.
• Foster a safe, mobility-focused public transportation system that promotes economic opportunity and growth for all Idaho citizens.

1. https://www.railstotrails.org/partnership-for-active-transportation/why/what-is-active-transportation/