Update from original article from April 8, 2016. Mirroring the penny-per-ounce tax passed in Berkeley, Cali. in 2014, the City Council of Oakland unanimously agreed to place a soda tax on the November ballot. One Councilwoman Annie Campbell Washington who sponsored the recent measure said in a recent news article that she estimates the money raised for Oakland to go to help fund health programs would be in the millions. Berkely has raised thousands of dollars and are already using the funds to support health projects. Much of the community of Oakland has stated that they support the measure, which like Berkeley's tax, allows an advisory group to help recommend which health programs to fund. Copy & Share on Twitter: Oakland ballot to mirror Berkeley's soda tax ...
In majority Latino California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed a series of bills that will raise the smoking age from 18 to 21 and will limit the sale of electronic cigarettes, reports the LA Times. "[These laws] will save countless lives, reduce astronomical costs to the health care system, and cost very little because it uses existing enforcement mechanisms," said Senator Ed Hernandez, who authored the bill to raise the age of tobacco products. "Today was an enormous victory for not only this generation, but also for many generations to come who will not suffer the deadly impacts of tobacco." California joins Hawaii as the second state to raise the smoking age and to ban the selling of electronic cigarettes to anyone under 21. According to a recent study, raising the smoking ...
A recent news article announced that former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg will help provide financial support the nonprofit Philadelphians for a Fair Future. The Philadelphians for a Fair Future group is currently working on an ad campaign to support a 3 cents per ounce soda tax, which will raise support in the millions for universal pre-k and community schools for parks and library improvements. Other news articles even show a study from Harvard that reports that Philadelphia could save over $190 million in health-care costs if the proposal is passed. The American Beverage Association has spent millions in ads towards Latino kids and has spent millions in working against similar soda tax and labeling proposals across the nation, Research shows that Latino kids are ...
The #ShareACoke campaign is using hit songs to promote their products to Latinos, now marketing groups within public health groups are also sharing the tunes they see big soda promoting. Consuming daily amounts of sugary sweetened beverages have been shown through studies to lead to greater risks for type 2 diabetes, obesity, and other diet-related health risks and are also the number one source of added sugar in the American diet. To raise awareness of the health risks related to consuming sugary beverages like soda, organizations like Berkeley Media Studies Group other health-focused groups are tweeting out on twitter about the truth behind soda consumption, showing how health risks can impact consumers. They are asking all to get involved with the hashtag #ShareACoke and ...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 out of 3 antibiotics prescribed by doctors in the U.S. are unnecessary, The Washington Post reports. "Antibiotics are lifesaving drugs, and if we continue down the road of inappropriate use we'll lose the most powerful tool we have to fight life-threatening infections," said CDC Director Tom Frieden. "Losing these antibiotics would undermine our ability to treat patients with deadly infections, cancer, provide organ transplants, and save victims of burns and trauma." According to the CDC, antibiotics are most commonly prescribed for illnesses such as common colds, bronchitis, sinus and ear infections. The CDC’s national goal is to cut “unneeded prescriptions by at least half by ...
According to a recent article, a 2014 study from Stanford University estimated that restricting sugary beverages from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) may help reduce type 2 diabetes and obesity among Americans receiving the SNAP benefits, keeping as many as 141,000 children and 281,000 adults from becoming obese. Physician Phil Roe is ready to help this happen and has filed a bill that would bar SNAP recipients from using their benefits to buy sodas, energy drinks, candy and other junk foods. After reading a letter from a mother being upset that her Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, (WIC) benefits didn't cover her two 12 liter soda bottles of Mountain dew, Roe told local news that he doesn't care what people buy, but stated ...
Starting May 3, 2016, Kaboom will award $1 million in prizes through their Play Everywhere Challenge, in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, Playworld, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Play Everywhere Challenge is a national competition for community-driven solutions that integrate play into everyday life and unexpected places, like sidewalks, vacant lots, bus stops, open streets, and beyond. Applicants should consider replicable, scalable innovations in city redevelopment and design that will help make play easy, available, and fun for kids and families. Cities are prime settings for innovative active spaces initiatives because city design impacts human behavior, thus cities have the ...
According to figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the birthrate among American teenagers has fallen to an all-time low. Once at crisis levels in the 1990s, the past decade has seen unprecedented declines and has taken place in all regions of the country and among all races, including Latinos, where numbers have been historically high. The birthrate among Latino teens has declined by nearly 50% since 2006. Theories on why this shift has occurred range from improved approaches to sex education and the proliferation of broadband Internet. Access to contraception is also seen as a key component to this new downward trend. “There has been a change in social norms that has happened in the past 20 years, and the idea of not having sex or delaying sex ...
By May next year (2017), convenience stores, movie theaters, supermarkets and chain food establishments will officially have calorie labels for consumers, helping them to see the healthy choice easier. Many restaurants including Starbucks, Panera, McDonalds and Subway and others have all already added calorie labels to menus , however, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) released the final guidance for all food establishments to have implemented policy changes by early May 2017. According to the FDA Americans eat and drink one-third of their calories away from home. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, children eat almost twice as many calories when they eat a meal at a restaurant compared to a meal at home and says the measure could help prevent 41 ...
