Westwood Unidos and Re:Vision, two local organizations in the Westwood neighborhood of Denver, Colo. (31.2% Latino population) were already working to make the area a healthier place for families. Westwood Unidos organized local community members, like Fany Mendez, to teach fitness classes in their spare time wherever they could, such as schools, churches, and even bars. When Westwood Unidos learned about a small building that was going to be torn down on a piece of land recently purchased by Re:Vision, Westwood Unidos raised the money to transform the building into a community center named La Casita, with educational and physical activity classes taught by Mendez and local community members.
Westwood Families Not Active Enough
Fany Mendez, before she became the Coordinator of La ...
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 ...
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 ...
Could activity labeling encourage people to do physical activity or not eat that bag of chips? What is activity labeling? Calories are usually shown on food labels, but what if the amount of time to walk or burn off those calories were also on the food? A new study asked more than 800 parents to look at a fast food menu online and pick a meal for their child, parents who saw the calories and number of minutes of exercise to burn off those calories, didn't order a lower calorie meal but said they would encourage their child to exercise. Interestingly enough, another study has shown that teens beverage choice was influenced by activity labeling signs in the store. However other studies have shown that people continue to order high-calorie foods, but some are three times more ...
This is an UPDATE to the June 2015 post: Kid's Low Swimming Ability is Unacceptable in the "Land of a 10,000 Lakes" With funds from the State of Minnesota, Hennepin County, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB), Shakopee Mdwakotan Sioux Community, as well as from local businesses, neighborhoods, elected officials, foundations, corporations and individual donors, the Phillips Aquatics Center-the first public, indoor swimming pool in The City of Lakes, Minneapolis, Minn. (10.5% Latino)-is a reality. In the Phillips neighborhood, 54.5% of children under 18 live below the Federal Poverty Level, compared to the national average of 21.58%. These kids often have low-swim ability and lack access to school or public pools, thus miss out on many of ...
Are you concerned about speeding cars in your neighborhood? Residents in San Antonio can request traffic calming measures, like speed humps, speed enforcement, signage, pavement markings and medians using the Traffic Calming Handbook. Developed by the City of San Antonio Department of Public Works, the Traffic Calming Handbook aims to improve street features to reduce the negative effect of speeding and cut through traffic. The Handbook is also available in Spanish. Improving street features to improve safety is critical to promote walking, physical activity, and overall health and wellbeing. This Handbook outlines the process a resident must go through to request a traffic calming measure. It begins by filling out a 2-page form. The first page requires information about ...
Linda Joseph, a special needs teacher in Florida, with some of the highest drowning rates in the country, wanted to make sure her students could swim and weren’t afraid of the water. As someone who values whole-child health, Joseph knows that water safety boosts confidence and opens doors to many water-based physical activities and associated mental and physical benefits. She went to a nearby pool for information and learned about and enrolled her students in free water safety education lessons through SWIM Central.
Fear of Drowning is High in Florida Linda Joseph, a special needs teacher at Lauderdale Lakes Middle School, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (13.7% Latino), lost both of her parents to a drowning accident when she was 16. She became fearful of water and didn’t learn to ...
In the past 15 years, the drowning rate of school-age children in Broward County, Fla., has plummeted thanks in part to SWIM Central, a program that provides free water safety education classes and transportation for public school children. However, drowning rates remain the No. 1 cause of death among children younger than 5. SWIM Central’s manager and primary funder, the Children’s Services Council, teamed up to develop a voucher program for parents to get their children under 5 into water safety education classes for free or very low cost.
Drowning is No.1 Killer in South Florida Cindy Arenberg Seltzer and Jay Sanford have long been advocates for water safety education for children in Broward County, Fla. (27.5% Latino). Seltzer is president and CEO of the ...
Nicolas Rivard and Allison Hu, urban designers in San Antonio and members of Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association, learned about an upcoming street construction project that lacks walkable streetscape elements in their largely Latino neighborhood, and decided to act. The urban designers mobilized and empowered community members to get involved and request walkable streetscape elements, and the city responded by adding street trees, separated sidewalks, and landscaping. Today, through their recent project, Place Changing, the designers use “design activism” or “participatory design” processes to build urban literacy and equip residents with strategies to continue to get involved in city planning and development projects.
Walkability Low in East San Antonio Neighborhood
Nicolas ...
