Last Friday, United's Vice President of Nutrition and Health Dr. Lorelei DiSogra traveled to Los Angeles to speak to a group of UCLA's pediatric medical residents and congressional staff from Senator Barbara Boxer's office on the benefits of salad bars.

Dr. DiSogra underscored the importance of translating positive research results into groundbreaking public policy, encouraging the group of young pediatricians to become advocates for improving child nutrition. Following the presentation, the doctors presented Senator Boxer's staff with a letter urging her to champion a bill to promote a national salad bar policy.

Afterwards, Drew Taylor of Taylor Farms joined the group for a visit to Hooper Elementary School in South Central Los Angeles to hear from students and school administrators on the success of the school's two salad bars.

"Research on school salad bars, done by Dr. Wendy Slusser at UCLA, is the theoretical underpinning of our policy goal that every school should have a salad bar. Visiting Hooper School at lunch instantly crystallizes the effectiveness and benefits of school salad bars as we watched more than 1200 young students load up their plates with fresh broccoli, baby carrots, salad and Gala apples" said Dr. DiSogra. "Later this fall, we plan to invite Dr. Slusser to speak at congressional briefings on Capitol Hill in support of a national school salad bar policy."

For more information, contact Dr. DiSogra at 202-303-3400 ext. 403.