May is National Physical Activity month. It's also National Mental Health Month! Unfortunately, not all kids and families have access to safe places to play or services to promote healthy minds. While physical activity has numerous health benefits we often forget how important it is for promoting overall mental health and wellbeing. Some studies even show that having access to green space and physical activity programming can reduce stress levels, promote mental health and increase community resilience. Schools, workplaces, and communities all over can and should take action by promoting movement throughout the day this month and every day. On May 22, 2018 let’s use #SaludTues to chat about ways to boost physical activity and promote healthy minds in Latino ...
Latino kids are heavily targeted by junk food and sugary drink marketing. The food industry even dresses up unhealthy options with ad visuals of nutrition and physical activity. Marketing to kids is a big public health issue. That’s why it’s important to check out new policy changes aimed at reducing unhealthy food and drink marketing, compiled in a brief from the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. Kate Bratskeir of Mic also recently imagined a world with no junk food marketing to kids, suggesting other key ways to reduce such marketing. “Without change in advertising regulations, parents alone will struggle to raise children unaffected by food marketing,” writes Bratskeir.
Current Regulations in Other Countries
Bratskeir examined how some countries ...
Noemi Villarreal sees Latinos in San Antonio struggle with disease, and wants to help. That’s why she has helped launch family support connectors, and also developed farmers markets in the Eastside, a heavily Latino section of the city. The farmers markets did not work. How could Villarreal and neighborhood leaders still bring cooking and nutrition education to families to help prevent disease? Thinking outside the box, they created a series of classes that include a chef demonstration—and take-home bags so families can replicate nutritious food recipes at home.
Encouraging Healthy Eating for Latinos
San Antonio’s Eastside Promise Neighborhood (EPN) is home to 18,000 residents (67.5% Latino) who face health issues due to inequities in income, education, access to health ...
Colorado moms in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) can text peer counselors any time of day for breastfeeding advice, thanks to a new program being expanded across the state. WIC is a federal program that boosts healthcare and nutrition for vulnerable women and children. Latinos comprise nearly half of the 8.8 million WIC participants. WIC aims to improve breastfeeding rates, curb obesity, and boost early childhood development. Could texting help WIC moms get breastfeeding support they need? “We know breastfeeding is the healthiest way to feed babies, but sometimes new moms need extra support,” Heidi Hoffman, director of WIC in Colorado, said in a news release. “Using technology, we can help more moms in more places for less ...
Emma Sanchez-Vaznaugh, a former Salud America! grantee, has received a $3.2 million federal grant to study how federal and state nutrition policies and community environments affect the health of different racial/ethnic populations. Sanchez-Vaznaugh is an associate professor of health education at San Francisco State University. Over the next five years, Sanchez-Vaznaugh and her team will investigate whether the policies—which attempt to improve school nutrition standards and reduce childhood obesity—are effective across different racial/ethnic populations, according to a news release. The study will also evaluate whether the policies are more effective when children attend school in neighborhoods with healthier food options. “We hypothesize that the [federal and state ...
The FDA is making a series of new enforcement and regulatory steps to crack down on JUUL e-cigarettes, which is big for Latinos who are increasingly using e-cigs. JUUL e-cigs resemble a USB flash drive and come in flavors very popular among young people. A single JUUL cartridge is equal to about a pack of cigarettes, or 200 cigarette puffs. The FDA is planning or taking these actions: A national undercover blitz to crack down on the sale of e-cigs–specifically JUUL products–to minors at both brick-and-mortar and online retailers.
Contacted eBay to raise concerns over several listings for JUUL products on its website.
Contacted JUUL manufacturers directly to submit product marketing and research information to better understand the health implications and youth ...
Nature-related projects have been gaining popularity on school campuses since the late 1990s. Environmental city planner, Sharon Danks, for example, has been working to transform asphalt lots into green schoolyards for 18 years. She is the Executive Director and Founder of Green Schoolyards America and in 2011, documented 150 green schoolyard projects from around the world in her book, Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation. Since then: Schools in Chicago teamed up with the city's water utilities to turn drab slabs into green schoolyards for students and families.
Early learning centers across Texas are launching outdoor learning environments.
Austin, Texas, started planning their first "green school park.”
San Antonio, Texas started ...
Fewer than 40% of San Antonio residents are within a 10-minute walk of a park. Better local access to green spaces is critical, given that exposure to nature can boost children’s academic performance, physical activity and mental health. That’s why San Antonio has joined the Cities Connecting Children to Nature Initiative. The initiative, which started in 2016 as a pilot project to increase equitable access to nature in seven cities, expanded to include 11 more cities in 2018. As one of the 11, San Antonio will get 2.75 years of technical assistance and $75,000 in planning and implementation grants. But just how will San Antonio increase kids’ connection to nature?
San Antonio Lacks Access to Parks
Most of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, where inequitable ...
Good vision and eye health are vital to many aspects of health, yet Latinos have higher rates of vision loss, diabetic eye disease, and cataracts than their white peers, according to recent eye research. May is Healthy Vision Month! This is a great time to learn the risks of eye diseases and how they can help everyone, especially Latinos, take preventative measures. To celebrate Healthy Vision Month in May, let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, May 15, 2018, to tweet about the latest on Latino eye health and what can be done to prevent vision loss and other eye conditions! WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat "Healthy Vision Month"
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, May 15, 2018
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
Co-Host: National Eye ...
