If you’ve ever dreamed of making a difference in your community (or if you’re a kid who doesn’t mind getting a little dirty), then you’ll want to hear about the amazing mud run program, Mile Strong Kids by Fred Bailon and John Soto.
Bailon and Soto, two elementary-school teachers in San Antonio, Texas, organized a one-day mud run to start “standing up to obesity.” The event was so surprisingly successful that it led to the formation of a running club and non-profit group to organize mud runs all over town.
Obesity Spurs a Big Idea
Fred Bailon and John Soto are teachers at W.Z. “Doc” Burke Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas. About 87% of Burke students are Latino and 82.3% of the school’s population face economic issues, according to the Texas ...
Unpaved roads. Lack of proper sewage. Inadequate water. Rose A. Treviño-Whitaker grew up among these third-world conditions that plague some colonias—mostly unincorporated settlements in South Texas. That’s why she is dedicating her career to preventing disease and promoting public health as a researcher at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio. She’s particularly interested in increasing physical activity. “Regardless of the neighborhood conditions I grew up in, I still led an active lifestyle. My sisters and I still went outside and had a great time playing soccer in the streets with the other neighborhood kids,” Treviño said. “It is hard to see that this is not the case anymore, in my old neighborhood and all over the U.S. ...
Yoga can help cancer survivors get active and improve their current and future health. That's the idea behind a new $500 mini-grant for the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio to start a yoga therapy program for Support Lending for Emotional Well-Being (SLEW), a non-profit wellness center for women who have been diagnosed with cancer. The grant, from the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the UT Health San Antonio, will allow the team to develop an “Exercise for Cancer Survivors” educational presentation and a yoga program/curriculum that will gradually introduce participants to yoga and be sustainable for SLEW to continuing using upon the grant’s end. The project leader at the IHPR is Rose A. Treviño-Whitaker and the project ...
Shape Up San Francisco, a coalition of community leaders, wanted to know if kids in San Francisco were meeting state requirements for time spent in PE. They convened a group called the PE Champions and began to study 20 elementary, four middle, and four high schools. After learning that almost 80% of elementary schools were not getting enough PE time, Shape Up SF’s PE Champions partnered with school officials to develop a plan to change this. Now, thanks to the partnership, the district has 38 PE specialists to train teachers in the skills needed to provide students with quality PE.
The Need for More Physical Activity for Children in Schools
Awareness: Local health advocates Christina Goette and Marianne Szeto were concerned about the city’s growing childhood obesity rates and ...
Alicia Gonzalez, a young leader with experience in community development, was eager to keep kids stay active, given the rise of local obesity. She partnered up with a local family foundation who wanted to start a running program. The result was Chicago Run, a non-profit incentive based program which has promoted running to over 13,000 children.
The Need for More Physical Activity for Children
Awareness: Chicago resident Alicia Gonzalez enjoys improving the quality of life in her community. She has experience teaching youth about AIDS, mentoring kids in Boston, and building private-sector partnerships to better people’s lives through asset-based community development (ABCD)—an approach to community development that emphasizes a community’s assets rather than its ...
After realizing that patients were not participating in regular physical activity, clinicians at the Community Health and Social Services (CHASS) Center in the Mexicantown neighborhood of Detroit decided to try something different to get residents moving. Physicians like Maricela Castillo and Richard Bryce teamed up with local organizations to host the neighborhood’s first-ever 5K race. Because the 5K entry was made affordable, many of the 200 participants were CHASS patients. The clinic plans to make the 5K an annual event as a means to promote its other nutrition and fitness programs for patients.
The Need for More Physical Activity for Children
Awareness/Learn: The Community Health and Social Services Center (CHASS) is a nonprofit clinic that provides affordable health care ...
Commentary by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez San Antonio is what the entire United States will look like in 40 years, some say. That’s good news, but not all good. San Antonio’s large Latino population contributes immeasurably to the uniqueness and vitality of our city, just as the continued growth of the Latino population reflects our nation as a whole. At the same time, some families in our neighborhoods increasingly lack access to the kinds of neighborhood amenities that Americans rely upon to stay healthy, and face some obstacles to good health. These are challenges to health in all cities across the country. Research has found that, some people live in areas with more fast-food restaurants and unhealthy food advertising, and higher consumption of sugary beverages, per capita. ...
Thanks to a partnership between Beverly Gor and Children and Neighbors Defeat Obesity (CAN DO) Houston, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department (HPARD), and the Houston Independent School District (HISD), students at Briscoe Elementary School in Houston now have new opportunities for the active play they need to ensure health and prevent childhood obesity. Before the collaboration, parents identified a lack of physical activity as a primary health concern; now thanks to an after school busing program, students can attend after-school activities at a nearby park for free.
The Need for More Green Spaces for Physical Activity
Awareness: In 2005, the 44% Latino city of Houston was named America’s fattest city by Men’s Fitness magazine, prompting the formation of the Mayor’s ...
A group of Texas Tech University students wanted to get some hands-on coaching experience. Jeff Key, an instructor at Texas Tech, worked to give the students in-class instruction and an opportunity to coach/teach and do community service at the same time—a unique effort that resulted in the development of after-school fitness and mentoring programming at McWhorter Elementary School in Lubbock, Texas.
The Issue of Physical Activity and Obesity
Awareness: Jeff Key, an instructor and coordinator of community outreach for the Department of Health, Exercise Science, and Sport Sciences at Texas Tech University (TTU), knew that obesity was a problem among the community. He was especially concerned with how it was affecting younger generations. “We were concerned that almost 35% of ...
