Student approved meals gain success in South Carolina



What's a good way to make sure students eat the new healthy foods schools are trying to implement across the nation? Taste Tests! A school district in South Carolina, Laurens 56 school district, has worked with kids, offering taste tests to try the new healthy school food swaps, before putting them on the school menu. Now new favorites in the lunchroom include collards and broccoli! All items are taste-tested, and given feedback from kids before approved, to make sure students enjoy new items like the chicken fajita wraps. Cindy Jacobs, the Child Nutrition Director for the district, worked from the very beginning making sure teachers and students saw the importance of the new nutrition standards, and asked students to get creative by making their own lunch menus under the ...

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Arizona Parents Push for More Time for Recess



Christine Davis, a parent in Madison Elementary School District in Arizona, began looking into the school districts policies regarding time for recess and daily exercise in 2015. She made phone calls and sent emails to school administrators to gather information. She found that from the state level down, the policies were vague and the ones that were in place were mostly focused on P.E. This concerned her because she's knows an active body is an active mind, so she requested the district adopt more strict policies regarding recess to ensure kids get time to exercise everyday. Some Madison School District Government Board members agreed to discuss creating more specific guidelines for a recess policy. Davis and other parents also started the Madison Parents for Recess group ...

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MN school district ditches deep-fat fryers



The south is a place well-known for deep fried foods, but now Natchez-Adams school district cafeterias in Miss. are ditching the deep fryers. The districts are working to have healthier options in their schools and increase physical activity breaks among the district, by replacing fryers with steamers, learning new ways to cook healthy foods, and opting to have more fitness breaks outside for students. The district's Public Relations Coordinator, Steven Richardson, said in a local news story that the schools are working on highlighting healthy living amongst students. The child nutrition supervisor, Shantoura Spears, also explained that the funding for the fryers has been paid through grants the school has been receiving and have helped the schools replace them with healthier ...

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El efecto positivo de la educación física en los niños latinos



Según datos de Salud America! más del 39% de los niños latinos en EE.UU sufre de obesidad y sobrepeso. Un reciente informe de Voices for Healthy Kids, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation y SHAPE America subraya la importancia de la educación física en la lucha contra la obesidad infantil. Lee más sobre este informe y recomendaciones ...

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School Health Initiative Program kicks off in Williamsburg-James City County Schools



Working to make the healthy choice the easy choice, the School Health Initiative Program (SHIP) is activating kids in schools through fun activities and challenges for students to be active and eat healthily. On April 23rd, 2016, students from the Williamsburg-James City County Schools (WJCC) participated in a 5K and also led demonstrations in karate, yoga, hip-hop, and ballet. SHIP also provided farmers market attendees samples of the latest school foods being served up in the WJCC schools. SHIP is funded by the Williamsburg Health Foundation and works in partnership with WJCC schools to create and serve healthy recipes to kids in schools and keep kids active. To learn more about this change, click here. Copy & Share on Twitter: SHIP shows students in VA that active ...

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Trading sugary drinks for water across the city



Tennessee Clean Water Network is working to "Bring Tap Back". The nonprofit organization promotes clean water and healthy communities and has been a part of local visits to schools to encourage to use free water bottles to drink water and educate kids about the importance of consuming fewer sodas and sugary beverages. The "Bring Tap Back" initiative was funded by a three-year Project Diabetes grant from the Tenn. Dept. of Health. that has helped provide water bottle refill stations across the state. In Knoxville, Tenn. 80 water bottle refill stations have helped people trade sugary drinks for water to reduce risks of obesity and diabetes. Sodas, sports drinks, unnaturally sweetened juices and other sugary beverages are known to increase risks of diabetes and obesity in Latino ...

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U.S. Childhood Obesity Rates Still Rising



According to a recent study led by Duke Clinical Research Institute childhood obesity in the United States has not declined and severe obesity remains high. Dr. Sarah Armstrong pediatrician and director of the Duke Healthy Lifestyles Program said in a recent video in regards to the childhood obesity epidemic that, "Not seeing changes in the actual numbers, as this study points out, certainly is problematic, because there have been all the efforts aimed towards it." Researchers found that 33.4 percent of children between the ages of 2 through 19 were overweight and among those 17.4 percent had obesity. The results showed the continued increase of obesity among children from 1999 through 2014. Also according to the recent article 4.5 million children and adolescents had severe ...

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High school students get empowered to change their lunchrooms



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 ...

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