The idea for FoodFight was born in 2009, in our small office space. We realized that our expertise as nutritionists and health practitioners gave us a unique perspective into the obesity epidemic along with an ability to understand and navigate the challenges of bringing programs to the society.
Armed with this knowledge and with a deep commitment to making a difference to the millions of people who were unwitting victims of the industrialized food system, we designed a curriculum to unpack the social, economic, environmental and political forces underpinning the food system. We ran training programs for small groups of people and let them loose. The results were astounding. We saw dramatic decreases in sugar sweetened beverage and junk food consumption and increases in water, fruits and vegetables.
During our second season of workshop, we started to get feedback from our participants who wanted more support for their own health journeys. At that point, a light bulb went off. We realized that if we were going to change the culture of health and wellness in the society, we needed to put adults in front of a classroom that had, “drunk the carrot juice.” Coaches have tough jobs and need more support for their own wellness needs. Our Health and Wellness Workshop was one of the first programs designed to bring traditional workplace wellness offerings to people. Soon after, we introduced Global Wellness Workshops to help connect the dots and reinforce lessons learned at the society, and at home.
After five years of traveling around the country and throughout US providing health workshops we found it hard to keep up with growing demand for our programs. We also wanted to reach more people, scale our impact and put our field-tested materials into the hands of wellness champions around the world. To that end, the FoodFight Health Literacy Toolkit was born.