How many dietitians does it take to change the way we eat?

Three to start.

Wanda Agnew, Karen Ehrens and Deanna Askew are three dietitians who know that lots of health problems that challenge North Dakotans are at least partly the result of unhealthy eating. They also know that people find it daunting to fear that they have to change everything they do and everything they eat.

Better health, they believe, is a matter of all stakeholders working together and moving in the same direction. That repetition really does have an effect. And that people will eat better and be more active if they can take small steps toward that goal and find easy ways to make better choices.

Agnew is a dietitian with Bismarck Burleigh Public Health. Askew is the healthy weight coordinator with the North Dakota Department of Health. Karen Ehrens is consultant to Healthy North Dakota.

They were excited that Brian Wansink, author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think," will be in Bismarck to provide yet another building block in the forward progress toward healthy eating.

Wansink will give a free public presentation at a Bismarck Community Health Forum from 7 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 7, at Bismarck Burleigh Public Health, 500 E. Front Ave. He will talk about the question, "why do we eat more than we think we do?" and offer some answers and solutions.

Wansink, currently the executive director of the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, is helping launch new consumer tools including the MyPyramid Menu Planner and monthly podcasts at MyPyramid.gov. Wansink is also challenging corporate America to help put an end to childhood obesity by creatively working in win-win ways that promote healthy eating practices and increasing physical activity.

The event in Bismarck is sponsored by Bismarck Burleigh Public Health, the North Dakota Department of Health and Healthy North Dakota.

While in the state, Wansink will also speak at two meetings focused on obesity prevention. In Bismarck, Wansink will open the Healthy Eating and Physical Activity state planning meeting on Monday, Sept. 8. The meeting in Bismarck will focus on formalizing a state partnership to address healthy eating and physical activity statewide and prioritizing goals and strategies.

In Grand Forks on Sept. 9, he will open a summit sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows Alumni Association and the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center, "Obesity in North Dakota: Finding Solutions." For more information or to register, visit http://nursing.und.edu/obesitynd.cfm

For more information on Wansink, visit www.mypyramid.gov/Challenge/downloads/WansinkBio.pdf.