There is a movement in central Florida starting to blossom that promotes healthy food and activities through intergenerational connections. OASIS Catch Healthy Habits program encourages senior citizens to teach young kids how to stay healthy and active by volunteering and teaching them wisdom about what it takes to live a healthy long life. The program is sponsored by a grant from the Winter Park Health Foundation. The Rollins Center for Lifelong Learning established the Volunteers organized in Community Engagement program (VOICE), to recruit the senior citizen volunteers. The senior citizens volunteer with BrookShire Elementary every week to teach K-5 kids with a three-pronged strategy that includes a nutritious snack packed with energy, a nutrition lesson, and a fun game or ...
In 2013, Florida (24.1% Latino) had the highest drowning rate of 1- to 4-year-olds and the second highest for 1- to 14-year-olds. Near-drowning accidents left three out of four victims suffering brain damage. Today, 70 percent of African-American and 60 percent of Latino children cannot swim, compared to 40 percent of white children. Low-income and Latino kids face additional barriers to access physical activity opportunities, such as swimming facilities; therefore they have a disproportionately higher risk of drowning and high risk of obesity and obesity-related disease. SWIM Central aims to reduce the drowning and near-drowning rate and teach young school children water-safety education. Beginning with $82,000 as part of the Broward County (27.5% Latino) Parks and ...
The mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Ivy Taylor, will be joining walking groups throughout San Antonio (63.2% Latino) to encourage walking and to help get San Antonio fit. It is important for local leaders to promote walking and physical activity to create a culture of health. It is also important for local leaders to understand the walkability or lack of walkability that local residents face on a daily basis. Join Ivy Taylor and the Mayor’s Fitness Council in their kick off “Walk with the Mayor” walk on Thursday, Oct. 29 at 6pm at the Alamo Beer Company, 415 Burnet. This recreational walk will be between City Council Districts 1 and 2. Future "Walk With the Mayor" walks will be with many of the already existing walking groups throughout San Antonio in all city council ...
Bringing together the San Antonio community (63.2% Latino), Hemisphere Park opened up a portion of the planned park, the Yanaguana Children's Park, to celebrate their 3 day grand opening and ribbon cutting on October 3rd, 2015. The new park was filled with smiling faces of children enjoying the beautiful Texas weather this weekend, climbing, running, digging and splashing in the water fountains. Providing access to active areas, where little is found in regards to green space or places for children to play in downtown, the newly designed urban park provided open areas for kids to enjoy playgrounds, sand pits, and plenty of free music and interactive games for families. Free parking, is available over the weekend, allowing families who cannot walk to the park, a way to afford a ...
RJ Manchester and Erica Asti, staffers at the Florida Hospital for Children, along with Dr. Angela Fals and her team, spent years working with obese children and families in their Central Florida CCFW clinic. The local childhood overweight and obesity rates ranged from 32% in Orange County (28.7% Latino population) to 64% in Osceola County (48.6% Latino). The team was growing increasingly concerned about younger and younger patients with obesity-related health complications. “We were having some of the youngest patients we’ve ever had in the weight and wellness clinic with pre-diabetes and diabetes,” Asti said. They wanted to step up in a big way.
An underlying issue: No P.E. Asti and Manchester and the CCFW team discovered that many parents misidentified their ...
Inspiring every child to get outdoors and be active, is the new initiative, "Every Kid in a Park" program. This program is an Administration-wide effort in partnership with the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Education, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Offering kids free passes, the program's efforts are on removing barriers for youth from underserved communities to get to their parks, public lands and waters. Latino kids are likely to benefit from this program and as many Latino Kids have little access to active spaces, studies show. Access to more active and green spaces may assist in building a culture of health and help in lowering the high rates of obesity in Latino ...
Many Latino students don’t meet daily recommendations of physical activity because they lack access to quality activity opportunities during school and they are burdened by barriers to access quality activity opportunities after school, such as safety, availability and cost. Kids that don’t meet daily recommendations of physical activity are at increased risk for obesity and other adverse health outcomes. Two PE teachers in Edmonds School District in Washington developed a before/after school program as well as a recess program to help kids reach 60 minutes of recommended daily activity on most days of the week. They developed these programs to be implemented in schools to reduce accessibility barriers associated with safety, availability and cost.
EMERGENCE:
Awareness: Jennifer ...
Physical activity is a necessity with many cities dealing with high obesity rates, but how can physical activity be promoted within neighborhoods? Street connectivity and walkability are two built environment factors that may assist in physical activity within neighborhoods. Educational tools that analyze a support for walkability are helpful in understanding ways to change the built environment to help the community increase physical activity daily and in helping combat obesity. A recent report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used a 15-item environment audit tool, called MAPS-Mini to evaluate neighborhood design and physical activity in four age groups. MAPS stands for, Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS), it works to measure street design, ...
Many Latino kids live in “recreation deserts,” which lack access to safe, affordable physical activity opportunities. Therefore, they often do not meet daily physical activity recommendations and are at increased risk for obesity. One way to reduce these barriers and increase physical activity among Latino children is to provide free, safe recreation facilities in their neighborhood with culturally relevant programming. Two community-driven initiatives in Multnomah County, Ore., have crossed paths in their efforts to reduce recreation deserts in disadvantaged neighborhoods by building and fixing soccer fields and futsal courts.
Soccer Loving Kids Live in Recreation Desert
Oregon residents Shawn Levy and Ricki Ruiz love soccer and know it is good for kids and adults. But each ...
