Food and beverage marketing, including toy giveaways, can influence children’s food preferences, food choices, diets, and health, and Latino kids are specifically targeted more than others when it comes to food marketing. On August 21, New York City Council Member Ben Kallos introduced legislation that would set nutrition standards for those restaurant kids' meals that are accompanied by toys, games, trading cards, or other incentives . According to the press release, a meal that met the health standards would include: 500 calories or less;
Fewer than 35% of calories from fat;
Fewer than 10% of calories from trans fats;
Fewer than 10% of calories from sugar and fewer than 600 mgs of sodium; and
A serving of fruit, vegetable or whole grains. Food policy ...
Several Latino researchers were among those awarded $7.6 million to prevent cancer this week at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, thanks to the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. 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. Ramirez will develop bilingual, culturally appropriate social and mobile messages and channels to recruit young adult Latino smokers to sign up for a text-message-based tobacco cessation service. “Smoking is a problem among young adult Latinos in South Texas, but there are no culturally relevant programs that utilize Latinos’ heavy usage of social media and texting to help them quit," Ramirez said. ...
The city of Houston (43.8% Latino) could soon have its own city-wide bike network, thanks to an agreement it entered with electric company CenterPoint Energy, to build trails along utility easements. According to a Streetsblog USA blog, in May 2014, the city of Houston reached an agreement with CenterPoint Energy, to create trails along utility rights-of-way. Because the utility rights-of-way are wide and prevalent from north to south throughout the city, such a network of trails would complement plans for the city's Bayou Greenways system---a network of trails to be built along bayous which run east to west---nicely and provide a grid-like network of bike trails for the community. CenterPoint Energy's decision to build trails along easements did not happen ...
Action for Healthy Kids announces new grants available till August 31, 2014 for those seeking assistance in providing healthy breakfasts for student: Through partners CSX Transportation, Kellogg Company, Kellogg’s Company Fund, and the Walmart Foundation, Action for Healthy Kids is pleased to release its School Grants for Healthy Kids opportunities for the 2014-2015 school year. Around 1,000 schools will be awarded funds ranging from $500 to $5,000 to support school breakfast and physical activity programs. Funded schools will also receive expertise and people power to help implement a successful project that leads to sustainable change. Award amounts will be based on building enrollment, project type, potential impact, and a school’s ability to mobilize parents and ...
A popular infographic produced by Active Living Research (ALR) is now available in Spanish. ALR's Changing Communites Gets People Moving infographic describes how communities are succeeding at creating healthy environments. Having parks and streets that support walking, biking, and playing are all important ways to keep people active. Because 39% of Latino children are either overweight or obese it is important that access to parks and improvements to street-scale design translate over into Latino communities. Infographics such as these can help native Spanish speakers better understand the importance of such improvements to the built environment. Access the Spanish infographic ...
Active Living By Design has released Lessons for Leaders: Navigating the Process of Healthy Community Change, which provides leaders of local healthy community partnerships with practical, field-tested, strategic advice to help them be more proactive and effective. Over the past 12 years, Active Living By Design has gathered these lessons, principles and examples from a range of healthy community partnerships and their leaders. Themes include capacity building, communication, community engagement for equity, and advancing policy and systems change. Access the Lessons for Leaders resource ...
Active Living By Design has released Investing in Healthy Community Change: A Resource for Funders. This new resource offers a range of ideas that challenge business as usual, and explore lessons learned about investing in healthy community change to help funders of all sizes leverage their investments, achieve their goals and sustain their results. Active Living By Design produced this resource from their unique perspective on placed-based healthy community grantmaking and collaboration, having served for more than 12 years as a bridge between dozens of funders and more than 160 community coalitions. Read the full report ...
Active Living By Design has released Growing a Movement: Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Final Report. The report provides an overview of the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities national initiative which supported 49 partnerships to increase children’s access to healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity through changes in policies, systems and environments. Growing a Movement includes common themes, key findings and brief vignettes, along with implications for the field. Four key findings of the report include: 1 – Partner Collaboration was Critical for Success
2 – Connections to the Larger Movement Enhanced Local Action
3 – Engaging the Community Drove Action and Equity
4 – Policy and Environmental Change was Critical to Building a Culture of ...
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 your anger and ...
