HHP chair Dr. Charles Layne was recently quoted in the Daily Cougar and UH news for his work on a trial study to improve employee Health and wellness by motivating them to make healthier choices. The initiative lead by the Texas Medical Center is fitting snack machines on campus with easy to read calorie stickers. The program hopes to make people a little more health-conscious about their snack choices.

Dr. Charles Layne

The stickers are color-coded to represent the calorie range each snack product falls under. A "Snack Smart!" card placed on each snack machine explains the different calorie ranges. Snacks with green stickers are less than 140 calories, snacks with yellow stickers range between 140 to 200 calories, and snacks with red stickers have more than 200 calories.

The Daily Cougar

Below is a excerpt from the Daily Cougar article:

“Because the TMC program is (focused) on employees, we try to pick out places we think would be predominantly populated by faculty and staff,” Layne said. “We realized that anyone can use them, but we think statistically faculty and staff would use them more than students.”

“If it’s effective with adults, we’ll probably spread to more places and start working with the student government (and) the Division of Student Affairs to see about expanding in more student areas.”

Read the entire article on the Daily Cougar website

UH News

Below is a excerpt from the UH news article:

Layne's group and UH's vending partner Canteen will collect sales figures of the seven machines fitted with the calorie-count stickers over a three-month period. They will submit the sales figures to UT Health Science Center, which will analyze the data collected by UH and other participating TMC member institutions.

"If the program proves to be successful, I'm sure we'll have discussions about expanding it," Layne said. "The vendor is also interested because if it sees changing behaviors, it can modify its product line to meet consumer needs."

Read the press release on the UH News website