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Lisa

Articles by Lisa

Pop-Up Concessions Promote Healthy Plant-based Options



Getting students eager to try new plant-based foods is not always an easy feat. Yet, when healthy options look appetizing and promote vegetarian dishes in a new way, student's curiosity grows. The University of Pittsburgh culinary team collaborated with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS),  in a two-day workshop. They learned new skills and recipes to serve new plant-based dishes to students, hoping to promote a more sustainable diet. Nick Goodfellow, the Sustainability coordinator with Sodexo at Pitt University explained to Food Management that after learning all the new plant- based recipes the team wanted to keep the momentum around plant-based dishes going, but wondered how. The team's solution? Create pop-up food stations. The pop-up food station helped ...

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Multnomah Health Advocates Work To Get Soda Tax on the Ballot


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Health advocates hoping to raise an estimated $28.4 million per year from a soda tax in Multnomah County are working to gather around 25,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot. The tax would allow for an 18 cent tax for an average 12-ounce soda or 51 cents per liter of soda, with revenues helping to fund early childhood education, reading and literacy initiatives and school programs encouraging nutrition, physical education, school gardens and more. Health advocates like Michael Bloomberg are working together to get the initiative off the ground with seed funding. Also, the American Heart Association, who have helped pass similar policies across the nation have started a local advocacy group called,"Yes for Healthy Kids and Education Coalition" aiming to build support ...

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New Study Shows How Videos on Healthy Shopping Can Be Influential



Looking to make an impact on California Latina's grocery store shopping habits, researchers looked at how watching videos on healthy purchases could help encourage healthier shopping habits among Latina's. As studied by previous researchers, interventions that are focused solely on providing access to healthier foods for underserved people is not sufficient in helping them to eat healthier. However, equipping "food gatekeepers" or those who make the purchasing decisions for food and family meals, with knowledge on nutrition and grocery list planning skills can be a way for low-cost effective interventions. For the intervention, two groups of Latina's were asked to watch two videos, the first one on guided shopping and the other video focusing on mindfulness to support intentional ...

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Panera Bread Posts Added Sugars on Self-Serve Beverages



Eating and drinking healthier can be a challenge, especially when dining out. Now, Panera Bread announced their series of sugary beverages that will show the nutritional information, calories, and amount of sugars for each beverage. The first national restaurant company to post calories and sugars in its beverages, Panera plans to continue improving transparency for their customers, as they were one of the first chains to post calories on menus in 2010. “We believe people deserve to know exactly what’s in their drink so they can make the best choice for their lifestyle,” said Sara Burnett, Director of Wellness, Panera Bread explained in their press release.  “We know more and more guests are looking to reduce their added sugar consumption, and we’re providing an ...

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New Grant Opportunity Through Aetna for Healthy Communities



A new grant opportunity through the Atena Foundation's 2017 Cultivating Healthy Communities grant is open, offering up to $2 million in grants to organizations that increase opportunities for low-income, minority communities to make healthy choices in the places they live, work, learn, and play. Grant requests can range between $50,000 and $100,000 for projects that span 18 to 24 months. They are seeking partners whose work addresses pressing issues in the following domains: Built Environment, Community Safety, Environmental Exposures, Healthy Behaviors, and Social/Economic Factors.  This will be a highly competitive funding opportunity structured in two stages. Stage 1 involves a short application where all eligible organizations are invited to submit an online Stage 1 application ...

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New Grocery Store in Ohio Helps Increase Healthy Food Access



In Vinton County, Ohio a new grocery store is helping to provide access to fresh fruits and vegetables, where there once was a food desert, with little to no access to healthy foods, only processed foods. "We have to take people shopping because there's no place to shop. To pick up an average client in Vinton County were going to have to average at least 20 miles round trip and it can go up as high as 60 round trip," explained director of Vinton County Senior Services to You're the Cure GRA. Many advocates worked hard to help bring new grocery stores into the state including a new $2million dollar budget that included seed capital to create a Healthy Food Financing Initiative signed by Ohio Governor John Kaisich in June 2016. The new grocery store broke ground on Monday, March ...

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Pacific Island Nations Kick Junk Food Off the Islands



With obesity rates rising for the Pacific Island Nations, islands like remote pacific island nation Vanuatu is planning to outlaw imported food throughout all the 12 inhabited islands. The plan is to keep government functions and tourist establishments free from junk food, and instead offer up healthy organic local foods like coconut, lobsters and more. Public health experts who study the island nations welcomed the ban according to the New York Times, that explains how millions of people are dealing with rising rates of type two diabetes, and it would be untenable to send patients abroad for dialysis treatment or kidney transplants. The World bank reported in 2014, that four Pacific island nations were dealing with female obesity rates of at least 50%. More than half of the ...

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New Healthy Drinks Act Is Proposed To Help Students Health In the Philippines



To help decrease the increasing rates of obesity and ensure greater health for students in the Philippines, a congressman announced on Monday, March 13th, 2017 a Healthy Drinks bill for all public schools in the country. The act hopes to improve the diet of over 21 million students in the country where more than 46,000 public schools will have to limit, if not ban, the sales of soft drinks and energy drinks in schools. Ang Edukasyon, party-list Rep. Salvador Belaro explained to radio dzBB, that the World Health Organization (WHO) has encouraged banning or limiting sugary drinks, and now that sugary beverages are so cheap in Filipino schools, it has become a popular drink of choice for students during recess time. However popular sugary drinks are for kids, they usually contain ...

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Old Storage Room Gets Revamped Into A Garden in an Oklahoma High School



Gardens in schools are now becoming commonplace, as more and more schools see the benefits that gardens bring. Having a garden on campus not only opens up students learning to plant healthy foods but also encourages students to learn how to use science and math in gardens and may be used towards creating healthy eating environments in some cases. Rush Springs High School is now taking advantage of what used to be a storage room and transforming into an Aeroponic Tower Garden space. The class that goes with the garden is an entrepreneurial S.T.E.M class, teaching students not only how to grow healthy foods, but also allowing students to use food grown as a fundraiser to pay for more class projects, S.T.E.M teacher Larry Lance explained to local ABC News. Lance first came up ...

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