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| Joe Kerby, Brittaney Kerby, Melissa Cammack, Erin Rigney, and Marcus Cooper at the Hutto McDonald's owned by the Kerbys |
When I first heard that
Williamson County was ranked the healthiest county in the Texas I was a bit
surprised. We have wonderful people
here, of course, but health-wise they strike me as somewhere in the average
range, which is of course where most of us rank in pretty much everything. It turns out that the health department did
not actually go around and check everybody’s blood pressure or put people on
treadmills. The evaluations of county
health are made by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of
Wisconsin Population Health Institute, with the cooperation of state and local
health departments. Instead of doing
check-ups on people, they look at statistics such as premature death rates, how
many people smoke or are obese, teen pregnancy, unemployment rates, and even
air pollution. They also counted doctors
and dentists in the area, and how many people had health insurance.
To come out on top of all the
counties in Texas, Williamson County obviously did very well on most measures,
but I was curious if there was any category in which we flubbed up, so I called
Dr. Chip Riggins, the executive director of the Williamson County and Cities Health
District (WCCHD). He confessed that in
the category labeled “Percent of All Restaurants that are Fast Food
Establishments” we scored 56%, which is worse than the Texas average of 52% and
considerably worse than the national benchmark of 27%. As a county, we really enjoy hamburgers and
French fries.
If a woman goes to a certain
drive-through establishment in Georgetown for lunch and orders a bacon
cheeseburger with mayonnaise, a medium order of onion rings, and a small
chocolate shake, that one meal would satisfy her entire daily calorie and
sodium requirements, with twice as much fat as recommended. If she makes a habit of that meal, and also
continues to eat breakfast and supper, over time she will gain weight, and
quite likely develop heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. This is such a familiar progression that we
have come to regard it as normal aging, which it is not.
Americans consume one-third
of our daily calories outside of the home.
If we are going to eat out that much, we need to order healthy menu
items.
This is where the health
department steps in with a little assistance.
¡Por Vida! (which means “For
Life”) is a new WCCHD program helping participating restaurants identify menu
items that meet strict criteria for calorie, fat, and sodium content. Items that pass the test are marked on the
menu with a special ¡Por Vida! logo.
Melissa Cammack, Director of
Healthy Communities, Erin Rigney, a registered dietician, and Marcus Cooper,
Marketing Director, all from WCCHD met me recently at the McDonald’s across
from Hutto High School. Joe and
Brittaney Kerby, the owners of this and several other McDonald’s restaurants in
the area, have volunteered for the ¡Por
Vida! program and are rolling out the new menu stickers and promotional
pamphlets this week.
Joe and Brittaney are in
their 30s and are regular exercisers.
Brittaney recently completed a five kilometer race, running the whole
distance, and is now training to get her time below 30 minutes. When she brings her two sons to the
McDonald’s she makes them eat oatmeal and lets them split an order of fries for
a treat. Joe eats at the restaurant
every day. The Southwest Salad is his
favorite, fresh lettuce topped with fire-roasted corn, black beans, tomatoes
and tortilla strips, but when Brittaney is not watching he will sometimes enjoy
a triple cheeseburger. Brittaney has
studied nutrition and is really enthusiastic about the ¡Por Vida! program. She says
that a lot of people just don’t know that McDonald’s carries healthy menu
items, but she admits that hamburgers still sell better than salads. I ask her if the cashiers are going to
counsel people not to buy large shakes to go with their salads and she looks at
me as if I’ve lost my mind. “It’s about
having a choice,” she explains diplomatically.
Everybody else has already eaten,
but I have come hungry to taste-test the healthy choices. Joe brings me a small hamburger, a small
fruit smoothie, and a Southwest Salad. Marcus
takes the hamburger off my hands, and the rest of them stare at me while I
eat. There is a package of Paul Newman salad
dressing, but Erin tells me that the dressing isn’t counted for the ¡Por Vida! sticker so I play by the
rules and squeeze some lime juice on my salad.
Even without dressing the salad tastes really good and fills me up, and
the price is just $3.99. I wash it down
with the Wild Berry Smoothie.
To qualify for a ¡Por Vida! sticker, a meal must meet the
following criteria:
<700 calories
<23 grams total fat
<8 grams saturated fat
<0.5 grams trans fat
<750 milligrams sodium
The one weakness of the ¡Por Vida! criteria is that the content
of sugar is not specified. That’s how
the Wild Berry Smoothie can qualify. On
the other hand, most people should be able to figure out that the Wild Berry
Smoothie has more sugar than the salad.
The ¡Por Vida! literature that
Erin brought for me recommends water as the preferred beverage.
Other area establishments
that are participating in ¡Por Vida!
are Carino’s Italian Restaurant, Catfish Parlour, The Egg and I, and the
Wesleyan at Estrella. The folks at WCCHD
intend to recruit more eating establishments into the program soon. They want to hang onto that Healthiest County
designation.
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