Garfield County public-health official outlines Healthy Beverage Partnership and local outreach in Carbondale

Christine Dolan, nutrition programs manager for Garfield County Public Health, told Carbondale trustees the Healthy Beverage Partnership is a multi-county grant project aimed at reducing sugary-beverage consumption and the chronic diseases tied to it.

Dolan said the partnership — which has involved local partners including the Mountain Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security and district-16’s family resource center — has focused on school education, community awareness and working with restaurants to change kids’ meal defaults. “Routine consumption of sugary drinks, so even one a day, increases risk of heart disease by 33 percent, diabetes by 25 percent,” Dolan said, citing the group’s health messaging and data from the Healthy Kids Survey.

She reviewed local survey trends at Roaring Fork High School and other district schools that show consumption of soda, sports and energy drinks remains high. Dolan described interventions the partnership is piloting: improved water access at community events, locked vending machines during school hours with healthier after-school options, and encouraging restaurants to make water, milk or unsweetened seltzer the default in bundled kids’ meals — a change her staff said families accepted roughly two-thirds of the time when staff offered the healthier default.

Dolan said the partnership is exploring further measures, including restricting youth-targeted beverage marketing and options such as local fees modeled on other municipalities’ sugary-drink taxes, and will host a community conversation in the spring through the Mountain Coalition. She invited trustees to consider town-level collaboration and said she would follow up with information on local restaurants she had surveyed in Carbondale.

Trustees thanked Dolan, noted the regional approach used for other public-health initiatives and asked staff to consider how the partnership aligns with Carbondale’s climate and health goals. Dolan distributed water bottles and offered to supply additional materials for community outreach.

The presentation was for information and community coordination; trustees did not take formal action.