K-12 Digital Menu Boards with Nutritional Labeling - Childhood Obesity Task Force Recommendations

May 15, 2010 - PRLog -- Woodland Hills, CA,  Green Edge Systems, a leader in technology solutions for K-12 school food services presents the Epicure Digital K-12 Digital Menu Board System with Nutritional Labeling to support the recently published recommendations of the Childhood Obesity Task Force unveiled action plan to solving the problem of childhood obesity within a generation.

Menu boards in K-12 schools communicate with students just when they are selecting their food, while in line in school cafeterias and are at the battlefront ready to combat childhood obesity and educate students to make healthier food choices.

Most children are responsible for their food selections. From Wikipedia on “Childhood Obesity” : “Researchers provided a household eating questionnaire to 18,177 children, ranging in ages 11–21, and discovered that four out of five parents let their children make their own food decisions”.

If schools educate our kids to take full responsibility for their actions, it is the school’s responsibility to provide information and guidance to the kids while they are making their food selections.

Epicure Digital multimedia menu boards with nutritional icons and data next to menu items educate students to make healthier meal choices.

Green Edge Systems represents Epicure Digital Systems in the K-12 market.  Epicure Digital Systems is a digital menu board company uniquely integrating its expertise in software technology, restaurant operations and food service marketing to create digital signage solutions for the food service industry. Its core product is the Epicure Digital Menu System. Its core services are menu engineering and content creation.  

Epicure Digital pioneered the display of nutritional information on digital menu boards in 2003 for the U.S. Navy. Every menu item description includes the portion size, number of calories, grams of fat, and amount of cholesterol, and a ‘red heart’ icon beside menu items when the item ‘meets healthy Navy option standards’.

Epicure Digital Systems designs customized digital menu boards that solve complex menu engineering and point-of-sale marketing issues. By creatively combining information, motion, imagery and food photography, they produce visually compelling multimedia menus and promotions to help sell menu items and enhance the dining experience. They call this experience: The Cure for the Menu Bored.

Epicure Digital clients include educational institutions, hospitals, independent and chain restaurants, contract food service companies, business & industry, and cinemas and casinos among others.

The company's website (http://www.epicuredigital.com) has an extensive portfolio of its client's menu board installations.


About the Task Force on Childhood Obesity

In February, Mrs. Obama launched the Let’s Move! campaign to solve the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation.  As part of this effort, President Barack Obama established the Task Force on Childhood Obesity to develop and implement an interagency plan that details a coordinated strategy, identifies key benchmarks, and outlines an action plan to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation.

The action plan defines solving the problem of childhood obesity in a generation as returning to a childhood obesity rate of just 5 percent by 2030, which was the rate before childhood obesity first began to rise in the late 1970s.  In total, the report presents a series of 70 specific recommendations, many of which can be implemented right away.  Summarizing them broadly, they include:

•   Getting children a healthy start on life, with good prenatal care for their parents; support for breastfeeding; adherence to limits on “screen time”; and quality child care settings with nutritious food and ample opportunity for young children to be physically active.

•   Empowering parents and caregivers with simpler, more actionable messages about nutritional choices based on the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans; improved labels on food and menus that provide clear information to help parents make healthy choices for children; reduced marketing of unhealthy products to children; and improved health care services, including BMI measurement for all children.

•   Providing healthy food in schools, through improvements in federally-supported school lunches and breakfasts; upgrading the nutritional quality of other foods sold in schools; and improving nutrition education and the overall health of the school environment.

•   Improving access to healthy, affordable food, by eliminating “food deserts” in urban and rural America; lowering the relative prices of healthier foods; developing or reformulating food products to be healthier; and reducing the incidence of hunger, which has been linked to obesity.

•   Getting children more physically active, through quality physical education, recess, and other opportunities in and after school; addressing aspects of the “built environment” that make it difficult for children to walk or bike safely in their communities; and improving access to safe parks, playgrounds, and indoor and outdoor recreational facilities.

To get more information on the Epicure Digital K-12 Menu System with Nutritional Labeling goto:

http://www.k12menuboards.com

Visit Epicure Digital at the upcoming National Restaurant Show in Chicago, 22-25 May 2010 at booth #1212, at the Green Edge Systems booths at Texas School Nutrition Association Exhibition TASN 2010, San Antonio, 13-16 June 2010, Booth # 643 and at the SNA 2010 National School Nutrition Association Exhibition in Dallas, 11-14 July, Booth #1449.

To set up a meeting and demonstration and for product and price information, visit us at one of the upcoming events or contact Green Edge Systems, Inc. at 855-463-6473, Tommy.Orpaz@greenedgesystems.com .

Contact information:

Tommy Orpaz
Woodland Hills, CA 91364
mailto:Tommy.Orpaz@greenedgesystems.com
http://www.k12menuboards.com
1-855-info-GreenEdge
1-855-463-6473

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Green Edge Systems, Inc., is a trusted leader of Technology Solutions for k-12 Schools that include K-12 Digital Menu Boards, K-12 Digital Signage Solutions, Server Room and Refrigeration Monitoring Solution, HACCP wireless temperature monitoring and food safety Hand-held PDA Inspection Systems, Cooler Filter Blankets and Thermometer Calibrators.