Schools in California will now be having access to safe drinking water, as California Governor Jerry Brown approved $9.5 million in the state's budget to ensure school filtration systems provide students clean water. California has dealt with various droughts, leading to contamination and shortages of clean water creating a lack of access to safe drinking water in many homes, businesses, and schools. Over 100 schools will be helped by the funds, addressing previous issues of lead and uranium that was found in some schools water fountains. However, an estimated 980 to 1,690 schools are still dealing with water contamination issues. The Drinking Water Advocates Coalition applauded the Governor and Legislator for taking these vital steps to ensure safe drinking water in the middle ...
A new government study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that teens are preferring water more often than soda. According to a recent article, the CDC surveyed teens in 2015, finding 74% of students drank one or more glasses of water a day, and 26% of students reported not drinking any sugary soda at all in seven days, up from 19% in 2007. President of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Michale Jacobson explained in the article that many campaigns have been educating parents and kids about the harms that soda consumption can lead to in one's health, leading efforts to reduce sugary drinks in schools, public vending machines, and with soda taxes, limiting students on these options and helping them to cut out sugary drinks from their ...
National Farm to School Network is asking supporters for healthy school food to write out their thoughts about school meals, farm to school on paper plates. The network plans to hand deliver the paper plates to Congress and tell legislators that school meals and farm to school are an important part of kids growing up healthy with fresh fruits and vegetables in school meals. So far 350 people have joined the cause, drawing images like carrots and other vegetables and writing about food justice, social justice, farms, and more all on paper plates. To learn more about this movement, or get involved, click ...
Getting school kids to try new vegetables is not always easy, but a non-profit organization is working with schools to get the word out about how "cool" eating vegetables can be for kids. Super Sprowtz is using healthy marketing, like videos, stuffed animals, costumes, and puppets with hopes to have kids try new vegetables at schools salad bars across the country. Characters like Oliver Onion or Suzy Sweetpea are just a few of the super hero puppets that make eating vegetables exciting. The non-profit has worked with the national campaign "Let's Move" and famous celebrities to market to families and kids about enjoying a healthier diet and being encouraged to "eat your super powers", which sounds more fun than "eat your vegetables". Sprowtz also works with Cornell University's ...
According to local news and a recent study of California school children, unemployment rates can increase a child's risk of becoming an unhealthy weight. Researcher and lead author of the study, Vanessa Oddo from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore explained that there is a trickle down effect that impact kids health. Researchers studied California's unemployment levels and house foreclosures from 2008 to 2012 along with heights and weights of 1.7 million school-aged children, more than half Latino, from the state's department of education. Students body mass index (BMI)'s were compared with economic indicators showing for every one percent increase in unemployment in a community, children had a 14% increase in BMI. However, foreclosure had a reverse ...
The state of Alaska has started the "Play Every Day" campaign to help boost physical activity and reduce sugary drink consumption among families across the state, where two out of three Alaskan adults are now overweight or obese and one out of three Alaskan children are overweight or obese. The new campaign asks kids to drink more water and understand that they don't need sports drinks to play sports. Public service announcement videos for families are also available on the campaign's website, talking about the sugar content in drinks. Posters inform students that even one sweet beverage a day, like a powdered drink, can lead to cavities, weight gain, and type 2 diabetes. The goal of the campaign is to help reduce consumption of drinks that have added sugars, but also to ...
According to a local news article, United Way of Central Ohio hoping to help Latino kids have healthier lives, noting from the 2016 Champion of Children report that reveals many of the challenges that Latino boys face. The report which includes local and national information finds that the growing population of Latino youth is living in high-poverty neighborhoods, limiting them to fresh food, quality schools, affordable housing and health care. Other barriers include language barriers, societal assumptions and cultural expectations of boys to work and contribute to the family. The report recommends that schools hire more Latino teachers, encourage Latino children to go into education careers and for teachers to become more culturally sensitive. Also recommended was for community ...
As visitors entered the public library in Clyde, Ohio, (5.9% Latino) students from Ohio State University (OSU) are encouraging them to think about the sugar amounts in their favorite sports drinks, coffee drinks, and juices, according to a local news article. The presentation was part of the "Rethink Your Drink" campaign aiming at helping library visitors to understand how sugary drinks impact their health. The presentations showed how Monster energy drinks contain 54 grams of added sugar or in regular terms, 14 packages of sugar, explained Katie LaPlant, the extension office's educator, according to the Fremont News Messenger. Research shows that consuming the added sugars in soda, sports drinks, and some juice drinks are linked to tooth decay, heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes ...
A new study shows how arrows directing grocery store shoppers may help them choose healthier foods. According to a study from the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior, the use of six feet by three feet green arrows with text inside stating, "please follow this green arrow for a healthy heart, or a healthy weight" directed consumers to the fresh produce aisle and helped them choose more produce. These green arrows were part of a study on nutrition interventions using non-traditional marketing on the floor of a grocery store to influence consumers to choose healthier fruits and vegetables when purchasing foods, but not increase their overall budget for foods. "Considering that half of shoppers budgets are less flexible for unmet needs at the grocery store, we knew that we ...
