No More Junk Food in Hospitals, Mayor Bloomberg Says
Only a few weeks following the ban of supersized sodas and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now targetting victim hospital cafeterias.
Mayor Bloomberg's latest campaign, Healthy Hospital Food Initiative, aims to create healthier food environment in New York City hospitals, both public and private. Hospitals can participate by adopting the New York City Food Standards, a criteria that ensures employees, visitors and patients have access to healthier food. The initiative will impact more than 100,000 hospital employees and millions of patients yearly.
The New York City Food Standards initiative goes as following:
Cafeterias:
- Will increase availability of fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grains
- Promote healthier value meals
- Decrease the availability of high calories
- Eliminate fried foods
Beverage Vending Machines:
- Reduce the amount of high calories beverages
- Ensure machines are conveying healthy messages
Food Vending Machines:
- Will include nutrition requirements for calories maturated fat, sodium, sugar, fiber and other nutrients
- Portion size by making requirements per package, rather than per than serving
Patients Meals:
- Will provide nutrition requirements for individual foods purchased such as sodium limits for bread and cereal, as well as meals served such as two fruits or vegetable servings at lunch and dinner
Thus far, several hospitals have voluntarily elected to introduce healthier food choices to replace high-calories processed foods available in vending machines, cafeteria and patients meals. "Hospitals should set the standard for promoting healthy behaviors and with this initiative in New York City, they are doing just that," Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said in a release.
Mayor Bloomberg said, "If there's any place that should not allow smoking or try to make you eat healthy, you would think it'd be the hospitals. We're doing what we should do and you'll see, I think, most of the private hospitals go along with it."
| Participating Hospitals Bellevue Hospital Center Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center Health Care System Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility Coney Island Hospital Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Nursing and Rehabilitation Center Elmhurst Hospital Center Gouverneur Health Nursing Home Harlem Hospital Center Hospital for Joint Diseases, NYU Langone Medical Center Jacobi Medical Center Kings County Hospital Center Lincoln Medical And Mental Health Center Maimonides Medical Center Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Metropolitan Hospital Center Montefiore Medical Center -- Children's Hospital at Montefiore Montefiore Medical Center -- Jack D. Weiler Hospital Montefiore Medical Center -- Moses Hospital Montefiore Medical Center -- Wakefield Hospital New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center New York-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital New York-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital North Central Bronx Hospital Queens Hospital Center Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center & Home St. Barnabas Hospital The Mount Sinai Hospital Tisch Hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center Wyckoff Heights Medical Center |
