271732 Meatless Monday: A simple idea that sparked a healthy food movement

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 9:11 AM - 9:29 AM

Peggy Neu , The Monday Campaigns, New York, NY
     
Meatless Monday is a global healthy food movement with programs in 21 countries and the participation of thousands of restaurants, schools, worksites, bloggers and whole communities. Founded in 2003 by former ad exec Sid Lerner with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Meatless Monday encourages Americans to cut back on meat for their personal health and the health of the planet. Awareness of Meatless Monday has now reached 50%, without any paid media. The presentation explored the lessons behind this explosive growth and how they can be applied to communicating the complexities of the food system. Specifically, the audience will learn how to develop simple ideas with clear, doable actions, the role of social media and bloggers in fostering viral dissemination, how to identify and recruit “game changers” like Mario Batali and Sodexho who can accelerate adoption of ideas and the challenges of guiding a grassroots movement with diverse, often conflicting agendas.

Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the principles behind the success of the Meatless Monday campaign; 2. Evaluate opportunities to disseminate messages for free through social media, blogs and traditional media; and 3. Develop a plan for identifying and recruiting key influencers and opinion leaders.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am President of The Monday Campaigns, a national public health-based campaign to increase healthy eating and decrease meat consumption that operates in hospitals, communities, companies and other settings.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4034.1: Food, Fairness and Health I: Communicating the “Sweet Spot” Around Healthy Food, Fairness and Social Disparities