Ever wondered how to write a policy or even what a written policy may look like? If your looking to promote better health in your community then you'll want to check out the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Policy Clearinghouse. On this website you'll find numerous samples of school wellness, government and community policies. You can also find sample shared use agreements. See what others are doing and gather ideas to develop your own written policies. Then you'll be on your way to bringing change in your ...
The Guadalupe neighborhood in Lubbock, Texas has seen some tough times. With many folks struggling to make ends meet, healthy eating has not always been a priority. As a result, obesity has been on the rise in children and adults. It took one determined Latina to get the community back to their roots of growing delicious, fresh foods. Lala Chavez partnered with a local university, her church, and ultimately the city to plant a community garden that would give the neighborhood with a space for learning, activities, and delicious tomatoes.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: Lala Chavez’s family has lived in the Guadalupe neighborhood for generations. A predominantly Latino community on Lubbock’s northeast side, the neighborhood has a history of poverty. “My grandfather was the first one to ...
Fast food restaurants may be be quick and easy, but research shows they don't offer many healthy kids meal items. In Austin, like many cities around the United States, fast food restaurants can be found almost everywhere, especially in areas where Latino children live. Austin City Council is considering limiting where new fast food restaurants can set up shop. The resolution, if passed, would restrict fast-food food restaurants from locating near areas that children frequent. That includes schools, municipal parks, child care centers and libraries. Read more about the resolution here. Thursday November 21, 2013, Austin City Council voted to reject the fast food ...
Salud America! today released six Spanish-language animated videos that shed light on the causes of solutions to Latino childhood obesity. The videos, which are also available in English, explore the latest research into how six critical topics—marketing, school snacks, sugary drinks, neighborhood food environments, active play and access to active spaces—impact Latino child health. The videos also feature evidence-based recommendations on how to address the problem. The child-narrated videos are part of a six new packages of research materials produced by Salud America!, a national research network on Latino childhood obesity that is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and based at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science ...
Principal Matt Pope wanted to make a difference in the lives of the children at DJ Red Simon Middle School in Kyle, Texas, just south of Austin. When he found out that Simon students had among the highest obesity rates in the district, he immediately took action to introduce healthy changes to the students. The school eliminated junk food on campus and at concession stands and encouraged students to eat at least one fruit or vegetable during breakfast and lunch. They also implemented a policy to require PE for all, brain breaks throughout the day and—at the request of students—afterschool clubs to keep them active. EMERGENCE Awareness: Middle-school teachers face enormous responsibilities—meeting high academic standards, preparing students for real-world challenges, and ...
Latinos have higher risk of diabetic eye disease. That makes it important to have an annual dilated eye exam—when an eye care professional dilates, or widens, the pupil to check the retina in the back of the eye for signs of damage, such as a cataract (clouding of the lens of the eye), diabetic retinopathy (damage to the retina), and glaucoma (damage to the optic nerve). November, which is National Diabetes Month, makes a perfect time to schedule dilated eye exam, according to the National Eye Health Education Program (NEHEP) of the National Eye Institute (NEI). “Half of all people with diabetes don’t get annual dilated eye exams. People need to know that about 95 percent of severe vision loss from diabetic retinopathy can be prevented through early detection, timely ...
Want to know how do you build a program to help Spanish-speaking Latinas deal with mental aspects of breast cancer? Be sure to drop in for our upcoming free webinar on Nov. 12, 2013, that features Dr. Anna María Nápoles, a Latina professor and behavioral epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who will outline the methodological phases involved in creating a new psychosocial health intervention for Latinas with breast cancer. Napoles also will highlight a case study in which community and academic leaders partnered in developing a program, as well as a protocol for a randomized controlled trial to test the program. The webinar, which is at 11 a.m. CST (9 a.m. PST) on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013, is hosted by Redes En Acción, a Latino cancer research network funded ...
The community that surrounds Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI is an official food desert, a USDA distinction for areas that lack a full-service grocery store within a one-mile radius and are predominately low-income . Many of these folks are Latino. Marquette students and a local church are hoping to do something to change this. An editorial in the school paper calls for the University to turn the former home of Campus Dollar, a now vacant building, into a grocery store. The author makes the case that:
"If Marquette is serious about working to get a grocery store in the neighborhood, the empty 4,000 square feet would be a good place to start. If the university would be willing to subsidize rent initially to attract grocery tenants to the space, profitability concerns may ...
One sugary drink a day for a year is equal to 7,300 sugar cubes—the length of four blue whales—according to a new online campaign to promote more water and fewer sugary drinks from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and Brita USA. Sugar-sweetened beverages are the largest source of added sugar in the diets of US youth. Parents, caregivers, and role models for the next generation can set the right example and relay the right message about sugar consumption to kids, according to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation blog post. "It’s easy to overlook the amount of sugar we consume in a single day when we look at it as just flavor. Remove that sugar from the drink and give it a physical form, and it turns into something that we would not as quickly put into our bodies. ...
