Operation: Eat Right, Emory’s new health and wellness challenge, aims to help employees eat better this summer. The challenge, which kicked off Monday, June 4, includes four two-weeklong “missions” focused on healthy eating habits.

“Operation: Eat Right is all about better eating through awareness,” explains Dawn McMillian, wellness specialist. “Controlling portion sizes, preparing healthy meals, eating more fruits and vegetables, and keeping track of what you eat — many of us would love to do better in these areas and the challenge is designed to help you do that.”

Similar to the Move More Challenge offered in the spring, Operation: Eat Right is offered through Healthy Emory Connect, Emory’s new wellness platform. The interactive website and mobile app allows employees to connect with each other, track their health goals and learn how to live healthier. It’s also the gateway for earning medical plan incentive dollars to help employees lower their medical costs.

Over 9,000 Emory employees have already joined the platform and are earning points and collecting their incentive monies by completing a variety of healthy activities. Operation: Eat Right provides an opportunity for those on the platform to double their regular point earnings for certain activities during each two-week mission.

• Mission 1 (June 4-17): Controlling your portions
• Mission 2 (June 18-July 1): Cooking your meals
• Mission 3 (July 2-15): Tracking your intake
• Mission 4 (July 16-29): Increasing your produce

For more detailed information about each mission and how to earn points during the challenge, visit the website.

A primary purpose of the challenge is simply to help employees use more of the easy, effective nutrition resources that are available to them on Healthy Emory Connect, McMillian explains.

“We really want to help people become familiar with some of these great tools to improve their nutrition,” she says. “By tapping into resources like Zipongo, which offers recipes and meal planning help, challenge participants will not only get the health benefits of better nutrition, they’ll also earn extra points to help them get their medical incentives. It’s a win-win.”

To add a bit of fun to this challenge, the Healthy Emory team created a cartoon nutrition superhero, “Super Dietitian,” who stars in a series of educational videos to help teach employees the basics of healthy eating.

“We wanted to do something a little different to promote this challenge, so we had some fun with it,” McMillian says. “Our hope is that Emory employees will also have fun with the challenge. Yes, eating right can be fun!”

Operation: Eat Right continues through July 29. Benefits-eligible employees can participate by first joining Healthy Emory Connect. Participants can also “opt-in” to receive text messages for extra tips and encouragement throughout the challenge.