Vtrim® For Colleges & Universities

By helping students develop the skills needed to break old habits, make nutritious food choices, and live healthy, active lives, Vtrim® Campus serves as a powerful tool for colleges and universities in combating the obesity epidemic.

Vtrim® For-Credit Courses

Offered as a series of two, consecutive 1-credit courses in degree or non-degree programs. Innovative Vtrim^® courses comprise an entirely web-based program supporting behavioral change. They teach participants to understand, decode, and repackage their attitudes and behaviors toward food and physical activity. Vtrim classes bring clinical, research–grade programming in healthy weight management to college, post-graduate, and continuing education students.

Course objectives include teaching students to:

Identify behavioral strategies and techniques that encourage a healthy lifestyle and facilitate achieving and maintaining a healthy weight;
Understand how personal food choices, the environment, social support, exercise, and other factors influence individual weight and health risks;
Develop self-monitoring skills to identify the impact of both calorie intake and exercise on energy balance.

Facilitators Who Understand Your Campus

Vtrim® courses can be taught by Vtrim® facilitators selected from our pool of 40+ Vtrim®-trained, registered dietitians (RDs) or counselors (MS) who will learn about your campus. Alternatively, you may elect to have a qualified RD from your staff or faculty undergo Vtrim training to become an in-house certified facilitator.

Either way, your course instructors will have a detailed understanding of your institution’s meal plans, dining system, fitness opportunities and challenges, health and wellness resources, and grading policies. Like all Vtrim® classes, chat sessions, facilitator feedback, and weight-loss outcomes will be monitored for adherence to our quality control standards.

Administration of Vtrim®

We will work with you to administer Vtrim® classes in accordance with your institution’s protocols. Having delivered Vtrim® classes at the University of Vermont since 2008, we have built an operation model that can be replicated and modified at any academic institution:

Course content: Well-honed, proven undergraduate curriculum, including grading policies and established learning objectives, are in place and ready for your institution.
Student Safety: Facilitators for our Vtrim® Campus programs are trained to identify students whose health, wellness, or safety may be at risk. Following our At-Risk Student Policy, facilitators work proactively with campus staff to ensure that these students are referred to appropriate local resources in a timely manner.
Course catalog: We can provide any needed course catalog information for upcoming semesters.
Marketing: We can provide posters, table tents, email messaging and brochures; and we can facilitate guest speaker arrangements. Typically, once the Vtrim program is under way, its popularity grows substantially via word of mouth.

Staff & Faculty Involvement

Making Vtrim accessible through tuition remission allows staff, faculty, and their families to benefit from the program at no cost. Another option is to offer Vtrim through your employee wellness program on campus.

Vtrim Meals

In collaboration with dining services, we can offer an optional Vtrim meal program that includes a variety of chef-developed recipes. Providing healthy, delicious choices at on-campus dining facilities supports the Vtrim curriculum with tangible examples of how to eat well. In addition, Vtrim meals have proven exceptionally popular among both students and staff, increasing interest and awareness of the Vtrim program.