AMSA's Healthy Hospitals Campaign

Hospitals have a Responsibility to Provide a Healthy Environment to the Communities They Serve

One of the greatest contributors to disease in our country is poor nutrition. A hospital's mission is to improve the health of the population it serves. As medical students, we believe that when hospitals allow unhealthy fast food on their premises, it sends the wrong message to their communities. Hospitals should be promoting good nutrition and healthy eating options as a way to prevent and treat disease.

RESEARCH ON FAST FOOD AND HEALTH
It is common sense that fast food is not healthy, but now there are numerous studies that prove it:

• Female Adolescents with frequent fast food consumption eat more calories, more fat, saturated fat, and more salt (Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 159(7):626-31, 2005 Jul.)
• Those with frequent (more than twice a week) visits to fast-food restaurants gained an extra 10 pounds of bodyweight (over 15 years) and had a two-fold greater increase in insulin resistance, compared to those who ate fast food less than once per week Lancet. 365(9453):36-42, 2005 Jan 1.
• Eating at fast-food restaurants is associated with higher fat and lower vegetable intakes in African Americans. (Public Health Nutrition. 7(8):1089-96, 2004 Dec.)
• Fast food consumption is associated with a diet high in energy and energy density and low in essential micronutrient density (J Amer Col of Nutrition. 23(2):163-8, 2004 Apr.)
• The greater the number of fast food restaurants per person or per square mile in a state, the greater the state level of obesity (Am J of Health Promotion. 19(2):137-43, 2004 Nov-Dec.)
• Overweight participants consume significantly more total energy on fast food days than non-fast food days (JAMA. 291(23):2828-33, 2004 Jun 16)
• Children ate more total energy and had poorer diet quality on days with, compared with without, fast food (Pediatrics. 113(1 Pt 1):112-8, 2004 Jan.)
• Adults and children who reported eating fast food had higher intake of energy, fat, saturated fat, sodium, carbonated soft drink, and lower intake of vitamins A and C, milk, fruits and vegetables than those who did not reported eating fast food (J Am Dietetic Assoc. 103(10):1332-8, 2003 Oct.)
• Fast food restaurant use was positively associated with intake of total energy, percent energy from fat, daily servings of soft drinks, cheeseburgers, french fries and pizza, and was inversely associated with daily servings of fruit, vegetables and milk (Internat J of Obesity & Related Met Disorders 25(12):1823-33, 2001 Dec.)

OUR CAMPAIGN

As a first step in this project, we will be trying to reform the most publicly unhealthy hospitals. These are hospitals that house McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and others on their hospital property. We are asking for these food vendors to leave the hospital grounds. We believe this is possible, as the Cleveland Clinic recently ousted the Pizza Hut from their campus.