A new movement towards healthier lunchrooms is happening in Iowa high schools by empowering students to assess and change their lunchrooms, helping to let take charge within their schools in making the healthy choice, the easy choice. Students are allowed to help change their lunchrooms through the Smarter Lunchrooms Movement, that applies the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (BEN) into simple low-cost concepts that improve nutrition and marketing for healthier choices. With a three-pronged partnership between the Iowa Department of Education, the University of Iowa Public Policy, the College of Public Health and the Iowa Department of Education, five high schools across the state plan to let student's use BEN to make decisions within their own ...
New research suggests that mothers who perceive their child to be in fair or poor health are more likely to underestimate their weight. The study from the University of Houston's Department of Health and Human Performance found that a child's risk for obesity or malnutrition may be tied to the mother's misperception of her child's weight status. Surveying 70 low-income Latina mothers, the study revealed over 54 percent of the mothers surveyed with an overweight or obese child perceived their child as being a healthy weight. One of the main researchers of the study explained in a recent article that the way mothers perceive their children's weight is closely tied to their own weight, and often Latina moms seem to link health with weight. Researchers suggest that bilingual ...
Want to get your kids to eat vegetables? A lunch lady from New York has cracked the code on how to get picky eaters to eat healthier foods like kale and beans. Donna Riviello, the food service director at Clyde-Savannah Central School District has helped kids try unfamiliar vegetables in school lunches like kale, sweet potatoes, and legumes. Working with marketing tactics and taste testing trials in the schools lunch room, she has kids try out new vegetables and even has them pair it with other favorites. A recent article states that some studies have shown it takes as many as twenty times for a kid to like new foods, and Riviello stated it usually takes students five to seven times to make up their minds about the new vegetables, saying that "There's a psychology to ...
A new coalition has joined together as the Healthy Boulder Kids, aimed to help advocate healthier changes for kids in the state to have equal access to healthy foods and opportunities for activity. The group also is aiming to help prevent childhood health risks like diabetes and obesity and is submitting language for an excise tax on distributors of 2 cents per ounce on sugary drinks that contain at least 5 grams of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup or other added sweeteners per 12 fluid ounces. The measure would provide funding for programs that give greater access and opportunity for healthy foods and exercise for families and children living in Boulder. It would also not tax 100 percent fruit juice, vegetable juices (with no added sweeteners), milk products, liquid medicines, ...
Mars announced last week to pledge to lower sodium in their processed foods by twenty percent by 2021. The plan for Mars Food is to add more herbs and spices to maintain their products flavor and reduce the salt. High salt and sugar contents are common in processed foods, and not always easy to see in labeling, making it an easy hazard for heart health risks. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), some of the sodium levels in Mars's popular Uncle Ben's rice products are high enough that if a person serves themselves an extra serving of the chicken-flavored rice, they would be over the recommended daily amount of sodium. The AHA has long requested food companies to reduce sodium in its products for health reasons. Mars is also now requesting the FDA to issue ...
A growing list of countries around the world are starting to tax sugar-sweetened beverages in hopes to combat the health risks associated with them, including South Africa. The tax is aimed at helping decrease future associated health risk costs related to diseases like obesity. According to a recent article Professor Tess van der Merwe says half of South African adult women and a third of adult men are "overweight" and obesity rates are rising sharply in african children. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported obesity rates of children under five have nearly doubled. The levy, announced in February this year by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in his budget is set to take effect in April 2017. Copy & Share on Twitter: South Africa to have #sodatax in April 2017 ...
Health organizations around the world are asking the largest beverage industries, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to adopt changes in regards to marketing to kids ages 16 and younger. Gathering with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in Wash. D.C., groups such as The World Public Health Nutrition Association, World Obesity Federation, Healthy Latin America Coalition, Alianza por la salud Alimentaria, and more wrote to big soda's CEO's and institutional investors to consider the soda-related health risks that communities in low-income countries continue to face with rising rates of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Billions of dollars is spent in marketing soda world-wide and much of the "core demographic" according to CSPI's recent article, are teens and low-income ...
A non-profit committee made up of 12,000 physicians, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), is asking hospitals to re-consider fast food chains and set an example with healthier food options within hospital's facilities. The movement is a play on Chick-fil-A signs that ask consumers to "Eat more chicken", but physicians hold signs asking consumers to "Eat more chickpeas". In a recent article, Angie Eakin, MD, one of the doctors on the ads explains, "Many of the hospitals that host Chick-fil-A are in states with high rates of diet-related diseases, making hospitals part of the overall toxic food environment. Hospitals should be fast-food-free, and patients should eat more chickpeas, vegetables, fruits, and other foods that can promote healing and prevent ...
Do you walk? American Public Health Association (APHA) is asking people to get active by walking everyday and entering in their miles or steps towards their overall goal of a billion steps. Even if you only walk 15 minutes a day, or 10 minutes walking the dog, and 10 more going to work, you can enter in your total and help achieve the APHA goal. Learn about how to count your time walking into counting steps or miles here. Each week they will award a $25 Amazon gift card to a participant. On May 31st, 2016, all challenge participants will be eligible to win the grand prize of a Fitbit Charge HR. Learn more and enter your steps now here! Copy & Share on Twitter: Help @PublicHealth reach a billion steps today! Enter to #win prizes! ...
