This weekend I'm in Chicago for the Quaker Living Proof Weekend, which I've been working with Quaker to help organize in my capacity as a strategist withOgilvy's 360 Digital Influence Group. I'll be doing a series of posts about the experience - both from the observer's POV, and also from the social media expert POV. Enjoy!
Friday night Candace Mueller from Quaker hosted a meet & greet cocktail hour and dinner at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was attended by most of the 16 bloggers that had come in for the weekend. For me it was really cool to hang with bloggers who focus on an area that's NOT social media. They geeked out like I do when I meet up with bloggers off line, but it was all about food and fitness! Fun to be a part of.
Renee Mellican, Quaker Nutrition Scientist, Kicked off the morning with Oats 101. As a newbie to the Oatmeal scene I learned a lot about Quaker's approach to oats (approatch?) and the way oatmeal is made.
Health & Nutrition Trends Quaker is watching include:
- Oatmeals ability to help with "diabesity" the rise of Type II diabetes and obesity
- Oatmeal as a recession proof food - a single serving is $.22 - $.36
- Oatmeal as a beauty food - nutritionists recommend you eat from the inside out
- Oatmeals ability to help with food first prevention approaches (25 years of clinical proof show that oatmeal helps lower cholesterol when eaten as a part of a healthy lifestlye - more on this later from Chicago's top cardiologist Dr. Volgman)
- Oats education for schools and parents
The old adage "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is true! 10 - 30% of children and teens skip breakfast as do 20% of adults. There are a variety of health issues that stem from this - including the fact that skippers tend to weigh more.
Renee also gave a run down of the difference between all the different kinds of oats - which was eye opening for me as a oatmeal newbie. Check out blogger/attendee Kath (of Kath Eats) run down of the Science of Oats.
Shelley Haus - Director of Breakfasts
Shelley is a working mom and the "woman behind the man" - that's the Quaker Man - in charge of marketing for Quaker and Life Cereal. (Little known fact that internally at Quaker they call the Quaker Man "Larry" - turns out he got the name in the early 90's after the secret code name from the Toasted Oatmeal Flakes, "Project Larry", took off inside Quaker.)
Shelley gave us a deep dive on the Quaker you wouldn't come across at the grocery store. Talking about the 131 history of Quaker (with some cool firsts - like the launch of the Quaker canister in 1915, and the first time the Quaker man was updated in 1946...) She also talked about the great efforts by Quaker and PepsiCo to get their plant in Cedar Rapids, IA - the largest milling facility in the world - back up and running after it was severely damaged by the summer's floods (PepsiCo employees raised over $250,000 in relief.) We also got some sneak peaks at what's coming down the pike at Quaker - including Quaker Oats pancake mix (coming out next year) and True Delights snack bars (just hitting shelves now.)
Shelley also gave us some Oatmeal fun facts - like that people eat 346 million bowls of Quaker oatmeal every year and if you wrapped the tubes around the world they would circle it twice. Cookies are the number 1 non-cereal usage of oatmeal. 80% of households have oatmeal in the cupboard (how's that for penetration?) We also watched a Living Proof commercial - turns out the people in those spots are REAL people they find who have lowered their cholesterol by eating oatmeal and living a healthily. We were treated to some fun anecdotes about the behind the scenes creation of the ads, and the people in them.
For the next 30 minutes we had a great conversation on everything from bloggers and readers interest in low cost, healthy eating to interest and pricing for organic food by region, to approaches to the holidays. Very cool to hear all these smart bloggers talking with Quaker about their impressions and interests.
Dr. Annabelle Volgman, one of the nation's top cardiologists gave us the run down of the key risk factors for heart disease - diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure, older than 55, family history, low HDL cholesterol levels.
Heart disease is the number one killer of women - and a woman's risk for heart attack is the same for men after menopause. Heart disease can also lead to strokes. Over the last 50 years the rate of women dying from strokes, and 30-day mortality rate for women has not fallen significantly though it has fallen for men.
Dr. Volgman told us that fewer than 1 in 5 physicians knew that more women than men die each year from heart disease - and that women need to know their bodies (and symptoms!) and be aggresive with their doctors. Symptoms of cardiovascular disease/heart attacks include - unusual fatigue (reported in 70% of women a month before an episode), sleep disturbance, shortness of breath, indigestion, anxiety, and chest discomfort.
How to decrease CVD? 1) Good nutrition - starts with fruits and veggies people. Eat em. Eat a lot. 2) Take adavantage of heart health initiatives - a free screening can save your life. 3) Consider supplements and drugs that can help save your life like aspirin beta blocker, ACE inhibitor, and lipid lowerers. 3) Lower cholesterol. Dr. Volgman's first step for this is to recommend oatmeal. 4) Physical activity. Get ye to the gym.
More to come! (And I'm working on the camera issues to get lighter photos!)
