A new KaBOOM! playground has just arrived to Marshall Meadows, an affordable housing community in San Antonio, Texas. With the help of 200 volunteers from Foresters, The Housing Community Services, Inc. and a team from KaBOOM!, kids living in and near Marshall Meadows now have a new place to play. Plans for the project started with a design day in June 2014, according to a news release. As part of the playground design process, children were asked to draw their dream playground. Designers used their drawings as inspiration for the new playscape. The playground is expected to serve more 25,000 children. "A community's well-being starts with a child's well-being," said Tony Garcia, president and CEO, of Foresters. "Playgrounds are important to communities, providing an open ...
Editor's Note: #SaludTues is a weekly Tweetchat hosted at 1 p.m. every Tuesday on Twitter by @SaludAmerica. Health is vital. But some families face barriers to good health—lack of access to care, parks, healthy food, as well as more junk food marketing and sugary drinks—which contribute to high obesity rates. Today let’s tweet about the issues that impact our health and well-being during and what we can to create health for families at the inaugural #SaludTues Tweetchat. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “How to Create Health for Families”
DATE: Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014
TIME: Noon CST (1:00 PM ET)
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
Co-HOSTS: @SaludToday, @AHA_Vida, and @RWJF_Live! We'll open the floor to your stories and experiences as we ...
Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio, has received the 2014 “Regional Mujer Award” from the National Hispana Leadership Institute, a national leadership organization. Mujer (Woman) awards are given annually to those who serve their communities. Past Mujer winners include actresses Eva Longoria and Rosaro Dawson, Lidia Soto-Harmon, CEO of Girl Scouts, and Ivelisse Estrada, VP of Univision. “I am honored by this recognition for our multi-faceted work to reduce cancer and increase healthy behaviors,” said Dr. Ramirez.
Dr. Ramirez & Her Health Promotion Research
Ramirez is an internationally recognized health researcher at UT Health San Antonio. Here, she is professor and chair of the Department of ...
Please join #SaludTues, a new weekly Tweetchat series about health (salud)! The series, which takes place every Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET (12 P.M. CST), will feature any health issue can be a topic for the #SaludTues chat, from heart health, childhood obesity, nutrition and physical activity, access to health care, education, etc. Chats are hosted by @SaludAmerica, the health social media campaign, and two co-host experts or organizations. When is #SaludTues Tweetchat No. 1? On Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014, let's tweet about what we can to create a health for families at the inaugural #SaludTues chat and discuss our health and well-being. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: "How to Create a Health for Families"
DATE: Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014
TIME: Noon CST (1:00 PM ET)
WHERE: On ...
What good is physical activity if you fuel up with junk food and sugary drinks? One leader in Arlington County, Va., realized that the absence of healthy drink and snack options at parks and public buildings was sending an unclear message to the community about the importance of proper nutrition for an active lifestyle. With overwhelming community support, he drove good-for-you options into vending machines in county-owned property and local schools. This created places that weave both nutrition and physical activity into the fabric of neighborhood health.
The Lack of Healthy Food in the Neighborhood
Families in Arlington County, Va., come from many backgrounds. Walter Tejada, an Arlington County Board Member and two-time County Board chair, moved to the U.S. from El Salvador ...
Which federal policies are most effective for reducing childhood obesity? According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, two of the top policies are: 1. a penny-per-ounce ($0.01/ounce) tax on sugar sweetened beverages (soda tax); and 2. 60 minutes of daily after school physical activity for children. Through a microsimulation analysis, researchers were able to project the long-term impact of three national policies, including the two named above, in addition to a policy that would ban fast food commercials on TV. While all three policies have the potential to reduce childhood obesity, the penny-per-ounce policy was deemed to have the highest impact. Not only would a soda tax reduce obesity by an estimated 2.4 percentage points ...
Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the Health Science Center, the team behind SaludToday, was awarded a $1.4 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. She was among several researchers were among those awarded $7.6 million to prevent cancer this week. Ramirez will develop bilingual, relevant social and mobile messages and channels to recruit young adult smokers to sign up for a text-message-based tobacco cessation service. “Smoking is a problem among young adults in South Texas, but there are no relevant programs that utilize heavy usage of social media and texting to help them quit," Ramirez said. “If our project goes as planned, it will increase young adults’ use of tobacco cessation ...
Alma Daneshi cried as she sat in her San Diego-area oncologist’s office, traumatized by past-and-present health battles that continued to endanger her life. She had been through a brain aneurism and open-brain surgery. Then breast cancer. Then breast cancer again, followed by cervical cancer. She had lost her job managing a TGI Fridays restaurant while recovering from the aneurism and taking time off for cancer treatment. She got evicted and worried how she would care for herself and her then 12-year-old daughter. Then she learned she contracted viral meningitis during treatment. Daneshi, sitting beside her oncologist, broke down and wept. But then she got some life-changing advice. “My oncologist let me cry for a bit before she said, ‘Instead of crying, put ...
Kids in East Harlem (El Barrio) were in great need of physical activity programing and safe places to play. Alex Sabater and Deborah Quinones wanted to change that so they teamed up to create Young Bucks Sports, a non-profit aimed at preventing childhood obesity through teaching the sport and tradition of stickball to youth. Now Young Bucks Sports offers multiple activities to youth in Harlem for free, including: a summer stickball institute, pop-up playgrounds, a march to prevent obesity, and an annual festival with activities aimed at preventing obesity in the community.
The Physical Inactivity and Obesity Crisis
Awareness: Alex Sabater loves stickball and loves to share the same with others in New York City (NYC). The game is a modified version of baseball that uses a ...
