Ann's Choice Improves Eating Habits With Online Program

In an effort to improve their eating habits, residents at a local retirement community increasingly are turning to an online program that offers nutritional values of the community’s menu items, thus allowing them to plan balanced meals before stepping out their front doors.

Ann’s Choice (30000 Ann’s Choice Way) has been offering the “My Nutrition” program to its roughly 2000 independent living residents for nearly two years now, and adoption of the program has increased dramatically over time, with a 50% increase recorded from January 2010 to January 2011.  The program is updated daily to ensure the ever-changing menus from each of Ann’s Choice’s four restaurants are always available.

“Our menu changes every day, and the ‘My Nutrition’ program is able to look seven days ahead, so residents can plan seven days in advance, which gives them some flexibility,”  Director of Dining Services Chris Babst said. “It allows you to select any of the items on the menu and combines all that nutritional information into one food label similar to what you see on a prepackaged item.”

The program has proven to be a boon for residents who, due to health issues, need to monitor their intake of things like sodium, fat, or even ingredients. For instance, Shirley and Clyde Engle use the program daily to keep their cholesterol and fat numbers manageable.

“It’s important for us to keep at workable calorie and fat counts, because we both have high cholesterol and I’ve lost both parents to heart attacks,” Shirley said. “It’s very helpful. Sometimes there are things you look at on the menu that you think should be low in fat, but then you look and see ‘No, they aren’t.’ It’s the way it’s prepared of course, and this program helps us make sure we know what we’re eating.”

Even residents without diet restrictions have enjoyed the convenience of having all that nutritional information at their disposal.

“Generally, I’m pretty healthy so I’m not really watching for anything specific, but I do use it to keep within a calorie control count,” Charlotte Radcliffe said. “As we get older we have to watch our caloric intake more since our metabolisms slow down. “

As one of 16 retirement communities within the Erickson Living network, which services more than 20,000 residents throughout nine states, Ann’s Choice was the first campus to use the ‘My Nutrition’ program. According to Babst, the goal behind the program was to empower residents to monitor the food they intake and find a balance that’s right for them.

“We’re not forcing healthy eating,” he said. “We still offer all the favorites they want to see in the menu – the meatloaf, the stuffed shells, turkey and gravy. However, at the same time, we offer plenty of healthy choices on a nightly basis – low sodium options, no sugar-added desserts, and things like that.”

According to Engle, the program allows users to achieve that balance between guilty pleasures and healthy options.

“It’s easy to gain weight here because there’s so much good food,” she said. “That’s why the program is so nice; it helps you make choices. You can see how fatty something is, and then look at what types of food you can have with it. It helps us achieve the proper balance.”

Currently the “My Nutrition” program only analyzes Ann’s Choice’s dinner menus, but the hope is that, as the program continues to develop, it will offer information on both breakfast and lunch as well.

“We actually were the pilot program and it’s been rolling out in more and more [Erickson] properties since then,” Babst said. “We’re not at the point yet where we have all those recipes inputted into the system. When we get to a point where we can provide that information for breakfast and lunch options, we certainly will do so. It’ll still be another year before we can even start pursuing that, because we’ll wait for the rollout in all the properties to be complete.”

Until then, Ann’s Choice residents will be able to monitor their dinner options online whenever they want. Even residents who don’t have a personal computer can access the program via one of Ann’s Choice’s three computer labs, and while some residents may be fearful of using the computer, Radcliffe assures that the program is “extremely user-friendly.”

“I’ve never been one to be afraid of computers, but this is still a very easy program to use,” she says. “You just pull it up and it gives you the restaurants, and shows everything on the menu. It’s just a nice little program, and I’m happy we have it.”

Anne’s Choice is a full-service retirement community that has resided in Warminster since 2003. For more information: 1-800-431-0605.