Released April 20, 2009
BOISE, Idaho —- In Idaho, an estimated 8 percent of adults over 18 has diabetes. For all of them, managing diet is crucial to maintaining health and longevity.
That’s why Martha Raidl, a University of Idaho Extension nutrition education specialist in Boise, has developed a Healthy Diabetes Plate Web site that makes it easy to learn what—and how much—to eat.
Rich in graphics and streaming videos, http://www.extension.uidaho.edu/diabetesplate shows users which foods to select from five basic groups—vegetable, starch, protein, fruit and dairy—and describes their benefits and healthy portion sizes. Then, it lets readers plan their own meals by clicking on food items and watching graphics of properly sized portions pop into place on a 9-inch plate.
“They can see how their own favorite foods and recipes fit into their meal plans and have fun doing it,” said Raidl, of the university’s School of Family and Consumer Sciences. “Because eating too much of even healthy foods can make your blood sugar go too high, portion size is a major emphasis.” Video clips add in-store shopping and home cooking tips.
The Web site is based on a Healthy Diabetes Plate curriculum developed by Raidl for national use and taught statewide by University of Idaho Extension educators and other nutrition specialists. The concept—a visual way to teach diabetes meal planning—originated in Sweden in 1987 and was modified as the Idaho Plate Method in the 1990s by a group of Gem State dietitians. According to Raidl, 85 to 99 percent of research participants have correctly used the approach to plan meals that maintain healthy blood sugar levels.
The Healthy Diabetes Plate Web site has already generated international excitement during its development phase. After Raidl presented it in conceptual form at diabetes conferences in Prague and Berlin, participants who have been teaching their clients far more complicated carbohydrate-counting and food-weighing methods said they could readily adapt the interactive, online approach to their own countries. “They said, ‘This is so easy!’”
Mimi Hartman-Cunningham, who heads the Bureau of Community and Environmental Health’s Diabetes Prevention and Control Program in Boise, said studies show that diabetes can be prevented by eating right, exercising daily and keeping a healthy weight. “Because it’s really a cardiovascular disease, you have to manage your cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose,” she said.
“A lot of times people don’t have the slightest idea what they need to do about diet. Somebody who is newly diagnosed really does need information—and this is a great resource,” Hartman-Cunningham said.
Marjorie Rich, Boise-based coordinator of Central District Health Department’s Diabetes Prevention and Control Program and a contributor to the Web site, said that in too many parts of Idaho, “There is not access to dietitians or diabetes educators. Individuals are left on their own to try to find useful and credible information. This is a terrific opportunity to get information to people that they haven’t had it before—and it’s so accessible. You can read it, you can hear it and you can interact with it.”
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Contacts: Martha Raidl, (208) 364-4056, mraidl@uidaho.edu
Marlene Fritz, 208-364-6165, mfritz@uidaho.edu
