title: Restaurant challenge offers healthful meal options and builds diabetes awareness.
abstract: The Frederick Restaurant Challenge is an innovative project based on a collaborative effort among community organizations and partners designed to offer delicious healthful meal options at local restaurants during the month of November for American Diabetes Month. Local restaurants were challenged to participate and submitted recipes for healthful meals to the Frederick County Diabetes Coalition for review by registered dietitians. Diners voted on meals to determine the challenge winner(s), and were eligible to win prizes as well. Publicity prior to and during the month was effective in creating positive news about healthful meals when eating out, raised awareness about diabetes, and provided restaurants with desirable advertising opportunities. Feedback from restaurants and diners was overwhelmingly positive. The purpose of this article is to describe this successful low-budget project to encourage its replication in local communities.
  
  
  
  The Frederick Restaurant Challenge proved to be a very successful, innovative, low-budget project that met its intended goals: to develop healthful meal options for people with diabetes (or for anyone wishing to eat healthier); to demonstrate that healthful food can taste delicious; and to encourage restaurants to continue offering healthful options on their menus beyond the challenge month. Community interventions such as the Frederick Restaurant Challenge offer unique and important strategies for affecting change and raising awareness not only for people with diabetes but also for the entire community.
authors.affiliation: The Frederick County Health Department, Frederick, Maryland (Ms Blair, Ms Stone, Ms Russ)
authors.forename: Angela M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Blair
authors.affiliation: The Frederick County Health Department, Frederick, Maryland (Ms Blair, Ms Stone, Ms Russ)
authors.forename: Janice A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Drass
authors.affiliation: The Frederick County Health Department, Frederick, Maryland (Ms Blair, Ms Stone, Ms Russ)
authors.forename: Marylou
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.affiliation: The University of Maryland Extension, Frederick, Maryland (Ms Rhoades)
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rhoades
authors.affiliation: Frederick Memorial Healthcare System, Frederick, Maryland (Ms Drass, Ms Baldwin)
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Baldwin
authors.affiliation: The Frederick County Health Department, Frederick, Maryland (Ms Blair, Ms Stone, Ms Russ)
authors.forename: Kelsey M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Russ
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising; D003296:Cooking; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D006265:Health Care Coalitions; D006284:Health Plan Implementation; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D008396:Maryland; D008612:Menu Planning; D012147:Restaurants