Here's some encouraging news: A report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that children in Los Angeles County drank less sugary drinks in 2011 than 2007. This exciting trend But there is still work to be done. Latino children still drank more sugary drinks overall than their White peers. The study applauded the efforts of the Rethink Your Drink campaign that targeted low-income communities and had Spanish ...
How do… …city officials cut obesity rates from 35% to 29%? (Pg 1) …Latino families go “a day without sugar”? (Pg 3) …Bodegas add healthier foods? (Pg 5) Find the answers and more in the new Salud America! E-Newsletter. Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The program aims to unite and increase the number of Latino stakeholders engaged in community change and research on environmental and policy solutions to the epidemic. The network is directed by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. For more info, go ...
SPARK (Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids) works to improve the health of children, adolescents, and adults, by providing quality Physical Education programs through the SPARK curriculum. Through their evidence-based Physical Education, After School, Early Childhood, and Coordinated School Health programs, SPARK is reaching children around the country and across the globe. Curriculum materials developed by SPARK have been tested and evaluated and meet the National Association for Sport and Physical Education's (NASPE) standards for PE. In over 50 peer reviewed articles, the program has been shown to improve several health related outcomes for children. Now, according to this SPARK blog post, the Department of Defense has adopted the curriculum to be used for students in ...
A well-written food plan can help a city ensure that healthy, affordable food access is a long-lasting priority that will affect the next generation of Latino children. The small city of Damascus, Oregon took a big step when they approved an extensive food plan for their community, called the Healthy Damascus Food Plan. A city planner, city staff, and public health officials began working on the plan in 2011. Through countless meetings with the public, various assessments, and research the group identified ways to write healthy food policies into the city's current and long-term goals. Among the policy recommendations in the plan were policies to support the growth of local farmers' markets including the acceptance of nutrition assistance, economic incentives to ...
San Jose City Councilman Ash Kalra wants the city to consider not providing sugary drinks and whole milk at city property and events. He says that the city needs to be accountable for the types of beverages they are promoting, noting that sugary drinks are associated with unhealthy weights in children and adults. Plain and carbonated water, drinks sweetened with pure fruit juice, skim milk, 1-2 percent milk and non-sugary milk substitutes such as soy beverages would be acceptable beverages under Kalra's guidelines. Kalra asked the council's agenda-setting committee on August 28 to consider the idea, but the proposal did not move past that ...
Jonas Serrano, president and owner of Phyt NYC, a Manhattan, N.Y.-based private training facility, has developed a free community outreach initiative to improve Latino kids' exercise and eating habits. The project was recently featured in a news segment on Telemundo. Find out more about the program on ...
More folks can use their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for fresh, healthy food at farmers' markets in Pittsburgh, thanks to Just Harvest, a non-profit advocating for economic justice. The program works by allowing people to swipe their electronic benefits transfer card at the market and receive wooden tokens that can be exchanged with most vendors to buy food. Live in Pittsburgh? Find a farmers' market or farm stand that accepts SNAP near ...
Chinese food take-out can be a quick dinner option on nights where families are too busy to cook, but the high sodium content in these foods works against a kid's healthy diet. The Healthy Chinese Takeout Initiative brings restaurant owners and health professions together to slim down the sodium in these popular meals. The city of Philadelphia has gotten over 200 Chinese food restaurants to agree to reduce sodium in their meals by 10-15 percent. Organizers offered a series of low-sodium cooking classes last summer with the goal of changing the ingredients but not the taste. Nine months later, salt content in those two dishes was down 20 percent in samples from 20 restaurants. Researchers plan to test the food again in a few months, and expand the program to other ...
New York City Council woman Christine Quinn is proposing recommendations that would have kids' menus at chain restaurants adhere to certain nutritional guidelines. Also running for mayor of NYC, Quinn hopes that these guidelines would rid kids' meals of unnecessary fat, salt, and calories; some restaurants have items on the kids meals that are over 1,000 calories. She would like to see the kids' meals fall in line with the USDA guidelines for school lunches. Those guidelines call for no more than 650 calories, 7.2 grams of saturated fat and 740 milligrams of sodium in each ...
