SaludToday Guest Blogger
UnidosUS, Formerly: National Council of La Raza (NCLR) The holidays are upon us. So is the temptation for Latino and all families to eat, drink and be merry—but there are ways to approach the season with an eye toward choosing nutritious food, cooking healthy meals, and increasing physical activity in order to enjoy better health. These lessons are at the heart of UnidosUS's Comprando Rico y Sano program. The program, led by UnidosUS's Institute for Hispanic Health with support from WalMart Foundation, uses a culturally and linguistically sensitive approach and community health workers—called promotores de salud—from 20 partner groups to reduce local hunger and instill healthy shopping and eating habits among Latinos. UnidosUS trains the ...
Three of every four Latino kids have had a sugary drink by their second birthday, compared to less than half of white kids. Regular consumption can have alarming health consequences. In fact, being Latino and drinking sugary beverages at least once in the past week were associated with 2.3 times the odds of severe obesity in kindergarten, which can lead to diabetes and worse, according to new research package to be released Dec. 5, 2016, from Salud America!, an obesity prevention network at UT Health San Antonio, and Bridging the Gap, an obesity research team at the University of Illinois. Let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, to tweet about the new research and strategies to reduce consumption of sugary drinks among Latino kids: WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “The ...
Many people are aware of the effects that diabetes can take on your body. However, what can just having high-blood sugar do to you? Latino adults are almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes by a physician. In 2010, Latinos were three times more likely to start treatment for end-stage renal disease related to diabetes and Latinas were 1.5 times as likely to die from it compared to whites. Glucose, or sugar, is the fuel that helps power cells through your body. Levels of it rise and fall in your blood depending on what you eat. However, when cells don’t absorb the glucose, the results can include damage to nerves, blood vessels, and organs. “If you keep glucose levels near normal, you reduce the risk of diabetes complications,” Dr. ...
Currently, more than 75% of all American adults today are classified as either overweight or obese. According to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a report from the JAMA Internal Medicine journal, for the first time in history, the number of obese people has surpassed that of the overweight, Wallethub reports. Wallethub studied new data published by the Physical Activity Council to compare the 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., to determine which were the unhealthiest. Focusing on 17 indicators of weight-related health problems, including the percentage of adults that were overweight or obese and sugary-beverage consumption by adults. In 2015, about 81.6 million Americans were completely inactive. Factors such as genetics, emotional ...
We all know that breastfeeding saves live and money, yet many moms, especially Latina moms, do not meet their own personal breastfeeding goals. Why not? According to a framing brief by Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG), the story on breastfeeding is narrowly framed around a portrait of the mother and baby rather than the context of real women's lives in which it takes place. Consider why Starbucks' executives get lactation rooms, but baristas have to lock themselves in the bathroom to pump breast milk. Advocates should look beyond the portrait towards to the landscape-social, cultural, political, structural, and environmental factors that make it difficult to breastfeed, like lack of support in hospitals, insufficient time and space in the workplace, unfriendly businesses, ...
Does your supermarket prominently feature unhealthy foods? You’re invited to sign a Salud America! and Care2 letter campaign asking grocery stores to use labels, floor arrows, and other marketing strategies to promote fruit and veggie options for Latino families. Fruits and veggies are critical to help kids grow up at a healthy weight. Access to, and purchases of, affordable healthy foods tends to improve when healthy food offerings are expanded and promoted in underserved communities, according to Salud America! research. But some grocers’ marketing, placement, and store design nudges families toward unhealthy foods. The new letter campaign asks members of state grocery store associations to consider changes like: adding green arrows on the floor to guide ...
Restaurant owners and a nonprofit group are working to push a new salad on menus in hopes of improving health in the Bronx, New York's least healthy county. The Bronx Salad aims to appeal to the large local Latino populations with familiar ingredients, including plantain chips, corn, beans, red onions, cilantro, and a dash of hot sauce, according to a report by NY1. The salad was created by Chef King Phojanakong. "When you think of the Bronx, maybe think of hot dogs, Yankee Stadium, a lot of fast food," Phojanakong told NY1, noting the Bronx salad as a healthy alternative that locals can make easily themselves with lettuce from a rooftop garden and veggies from other community gardens. "We didn't want to create a salad with things that are so difficult to get." Access to ...
Is the food your baby eats truly healthy? Marketing for baby and toddler food and formula often contradicts expert guidance and “encourages parents to feed their young children products that may not promote healthy eating habits” needed for lifelong health, according to a new report. Marketing of added-sugar baby foods to Latino parents is especially problematic, given Latino children’s higher rates of overweight and obesity and health disparities. Let’s use #SaludTues on Nov. 15, 2016, to tweet about marketing techniques and the truth about the nutritional quality of children’s food and beverages. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat “Is Your Baby’s Food What It’s Cracked Up to Be”
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. EST Tuesday, November 15, 2016
WHERE: On Twitter with ...
Marketing infant formula to pregnant Latinas is associated with reduced rates of initiating breastfeeding, shorter duration of breastfeeding, and increased use of formula. In September 2016, the National WIC Association (NWA) announced that they were ending their relationship with infant formula manufacturers. The NWA is the education arm and advocacy voice of the nation’s 12,200 WIC public health service provider agencies and the 8 million WIC mothers and young children. In 2004, the NWA began taking the first steps to prohibit infant formula manufacturers from exhibiting, sponsoring, or promoting formula at NWA Nutrition & Breastfeeding Conferences. Their efforts expanded over the next decade, and in 2015, the NWA Voting Members approved a resolution that dissolves ...
