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This week Vtrim announced our new partnership with the University of Maine to offer Vtrim for Undergrads to UMaine students. Vtrim created its Vtrim for Undergrads for-credit course 18 months ago for students at the University of Vermont and we’re excited now to see that partnership expand from UVM to UMaine. To share more information about this exciting opportunity, Vtrim facilitator Natalie Lueders, MPH, brings us a guest blog post this week. Thanks Natalie!

From the time I was in Junior High, I’ve always had a problem with our education system in America. It’s not that I didn’t think it was good, I just didn’t understand WHY individuals in society are not taught some of the “basics” of life such as managing money, basic home repair, how to understand insurance & loans, parenting, and most of all, how to eat healthy and manage one’s weight.  While mathematics, English, history, science and business are all extremely important, there seems to have always been a “void” in basic life education……UNTIL NOW!

It’s exhilarating to see what the University of Vermont and the University of Maine are doing in partnership to provide students an opportunity for basic life education in weight management!   Students at both universities can now enroll in “Vtrim for Undergrads,”  a one-credit, semester-long course based on clinical research by Dr. Jean Harvey-Berino, PhD, RD, a nationally-recognized obesity researcher.  Perhaps I’m biased, but if my child was at one of these universities, I must say I’d “REQUIRE” them to take this course so they could learn from experts how to adopt healthy eating and exercise behaviors!  What an opportunity!!!

In case you are interested in learning more about Vtrim for Undergrads, here’s what Dr. Harvey-Berino had to say about Vtrim for Undergrads, “There is a groundswell nationwide for universities to provide preventative health programming to students. It’s an ideal time in their lives to learn healthy eating behaviors for long-term health and earn college credit, too.”

So what will Vtrim for Undergrads teach students? Vtrim will arm students with the tactics and knowledge to sustainably combat weight gain through behavior modification – altering reactions to emotional and environmental stimuli through reinforcement of a new behavior, or reduction of an unhealthy behavior. The University of Vermont started offering Vtrim to students in 2009. The course counts as a nutrition or physical education credit.  The University of Maine’s first courses will run this fall and will be offered through their Lifelong Learning’s division of continuing and distance education program.

Just like many of Vtrim’s commercial and corporate programs, the entire program takes place online. Students are guided by a trained instructor and meet online weekly with their instructor for a class in which a lesson is discussed in a structured chat room. Pretty cool!

Students are asked to set goals around health or weight loss and then these goals along with their progress are tracked with online tools, including a food journal and exercise tracker. Each week, students receive individualized expert feedback on their progress.

To date, though some students sign up to lose weight, most enroll to learn healthy behaviors. Many recognize that their poor food choices and lack of exercise in college can have a detrimental effect on their overall health and nutrition. Students work with instructors to set realistic goals and establish a healthy perspective on their individual lifestyle. For students seeking to lose weight, typical weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week; 83 percent of people completing Vtrim achieve a clinically-meaningful weight loss of 5-10 percent.

Obesity continues to grow as a public health problem. Obesity prevalence is 19.1% for men and women aged 18—29 years (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2007) and obesity rates increased in 28 states in 2009 (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation).

Long story short, by offering “Vtrim for Undergrads,” these two universities have figured out one way to truly enhance how they can teach and empower young adults in this day and age to walk away prepared to enter the “real world” in a balanced and well rounded manner so they can stay healthy and potentially live longer because of what they learned in their undergraduate education!  Now, that’s making a DIFFERENCE!!!!