Healthy Venues Accreditation
Background of Healthy Venues
Tackling obesity from all angles demands that we identify and take opportunities to make healthy choices easy choices within people’s everyday lives. Each year in the United States alone there are an estimated 225 million visitors to conventions, conferences, congresses, trade shows and exhibitions, incentive events and corporate/business meeting. All too often these events (even if they are about health issues) are unhealthy affairs with poor access to healthy food and limited opportunities to exercise.
We want to minimise the negative health impacts of conference-going, and use the opportunity of people stepping outside their routine to nudge them towards healthier choices. We will develop an accreditation programme for venues, encouraging them to support their visitors in making healthier choices. The process of accreditation will require that venue managers increase their understanding of how they might provide healthier food options and encourage physical activity, both within and around the venue. In return they secure a competitive advantage with a credible endorsement that they can offer to event organisers.
Alongside a formal accreditation process we will work with venue managers and planners to improve their health footprint (their “healthprint”). We will work in partnership, looking holistically at the attendee experience, including healthy meals and snacks from vending machines, food content labelling and encouraging people to use the stairs rather than lifts and sign-posting physical activity options around the venue. Initially targeted at conference venues, our aim for extension would be to roll it out to venues such as hotels and convention bureaus to cover all conferences at a destination.