Let’s Move Museums And Gardens – American Alliance of Museums

Catching up with Jeannette Ickovics: 2011 Feeding the Spirit Keynote Speaker

By Elizabeth Merritt

Can a museum win the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Childhood Obesity Challenge? With your help, maybe yes. Read on. Last winter, Jeannette Ickovics from the Yale School of Public Health talked to us about the exhibit Big Food: Health …
Feeding the Spirit Symposium: A Fresh Frame of Reference for Museums-Community-Food

By Elizabeth Merritt

This guest post is by David R. Curry, a member of the CFM Council. As someone who has refined a set of strategies to survive symposiums and conferences (which all too often seem like they could be half as long and twice as substantive) I …
SmartSteps at the Senator John Heinz History Center

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest post is from Lisa Dundon, manager of multimedia communications at the Senator John Heinz History Center. Lisa introduces a new video showcasing the History Center’s SmartSteps exhibit, demonstrating yet another way museums …
Connecting with Nature and Staying Fit at Lincoln Park Zoo

By Elizabeth Merritt

As Let’s Move! Museums & Gardens continues to roll out, the campaign has engendered some interesting discussions about potential tensions between a museum’s mission and health related activities. Nutrition and exercise may be a natural …
Museums Can Change the World: Improving the Nation’s Health

By Elizabeth Merritt

A projection for the U.S., by 2030: Obesity prevalence will rise to ~50% in men between 45% and 52% in women. There will be: 7.8 million extra cases of diabetes; 6.8 million more cases of coronary heart disease and stroke; 539,000 …
Do Museums Need to Care about Foodies?

By Elizabeth Merritt

This guest post is by Susie Wilkening, senior consultant and curator of museum audiences, Reach Advisors. We’ve been blogging a lot about food, leading up to the symposium Feeding the Spirit: Museums, Food & Community in Pittsburgh …
Food: the Universal Communicator

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest post is by Jennifer Rothman, associate vice president for children’s and public education at the New York Botanical Garden. Jennifer contributes to our ongoing exploration of museums, food and community. Interested? Join …
Big Food: Health, Culture and the Evolution of Eating

By Elizabeth Merritt

Ella Mitchell, an intern in AAM’s Government Relations and Advocacy department, reports on an innovative collaboration between the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, and CARE—Community Alliance …
At the Phillips, Just Take the Stairs

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest video is introduced by Dorothy Kosinski, director of The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. For me, the future of museums has a lot to do with supporting an overall sense of well-being for our visitors and community. In …
Museums Can Save the World: Tackling Food Deserts

By Elizabeth Merritt

Take a look at DC’s food deserts: The pink areas are food deserts. In D.C., they are all located in Wards 5, 7 and 8. Image is from DCentric Pretty scary, yes? All those swathes of pink are low income communities where at least 33% of …