Amherst, Mass., is a 73% white city. But with an emerging Latino population that includes about 1 in 5 Spanish-speaking families with kids in public schools, city leaders are ramping up to meet Latino needs, MassLive.com reports. They're even setting aside $54,000 to create a Latino community food program. "When we look at food access (it) is a real issue," Julie Federman, the city's health director, told MassLive.com. "Getting to a grocery store, getting to an affordable grocery store can be really challenging." U.S. Latinos face a big lack of access to support for economic stability, wellness, and education. Latino children often fall behind in school, and social and physical development, according to a Salud America! research review. Latinos especially lack access to ...
McDonald’s is removing cheeseburgers, shrinking French fry portions, and making chocolate milk less sugary in U.S. Happy Meals, in an effort to make its children's food more healthy, Reuters reports. The food company, first the first time, will set global limits for calories, sodium, saturated fat and added sugar in Happy Meals. The new standards will be implemented by June 2018. This is certainly a positive step. But it also begs the question: Can a Happy Meal really ever be healthy? This is an especially important question for Latino families. They tend to live in neighborhoods where fast food restaurants far outrank options for health food, according to a Salud America! research review. "Taken together, the changes do not transform burgers or chicken nuggets into ...
More than 700 Salud America! members and thousands of other people and groups across the nation submitted formal public comments to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to oppose its proposal to weaken school nutrition standards! Way to go, Salud America! family! These comments urge the USDA to reconsider its proposal, announced Nov. 29, 2017, to allow schools to serve of refined grains over whole grains, flavored milk, and higher levels of salt in meals. The USDA has not announced any action since the end of the public comment period on Jan. 29, 2018. Still, there now is hope for the many Latino kids who depend on school lunch for a healthy meal, thanks to members of the Salud America! network and others who took action!
The Salud America! Response
The USDA proposal ...
Junk food marketing is a problem and hurts Latino kids’ health. To improve Latino kids’ health, we must remove obstacles to eating healthy, particularly targeted marketing of junk food. But how do you communicate this issue to others? Let's use #SaludTues on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018, to Tweet about shifting people’s thinking about targeted marketing of junk food to Latino kids. We will discuss messaging and communication tips to frame the problem as a health equity issue. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “Framing the Problem of Junk Food Marketing to Latinos”
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. EST Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
CO-HOSTS: Berkeley Media Studies Group (@BMSG) and UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity ...
Healthy food activists Erick Kornacki and Joseph Teipel have a phrase to call the 81% Latino neighborhood of Westwood in Denver. A "food desert." For decades, Westwood residents have struggled to access healthy food. There are no nearby grocery stores or farmers markets. People lack transportation to find healthy options elsewhere to bring back. Kornacki, Teipel, and Westwood neighbors decided to take matters into their own hands. They began to build backyard vegetable gardens. They talked about how to create a food cooperative. They wanted to build the first community-owned and -run grocer as an oasis in this food desert.
Food Deserts Isolate Latinos from Healthy Food
In 2007, Kornacki and Teipel co-founded Re:Vision, a nonprofit that works on social justice and food ...
Latinos are less likely to seek health screenings or preventive care than their black and white peers, according to a new survey, American Heart Association News reports in English and Spanish. The Healthy Americas Survey indicates that: Only 55% of Latinos say they are vigilant about getting health screenings and checkups, compared with 68% of blacks and 60% of whites.
Latinos were more likely than blacks and whites to say they don’t have significant control over their health.
Only about 25% of Latinos say they earned more than $50,000 a year, compared with 47% of whites and 30% of blacks. “This is dangerous for the long-term health of U.S. Latinos,” Amelie G. Ramirez, Dr.P.H., a health disparities researcher at UT Health San Antonio and director of the Salud ...
The USDA announced an interim final rule that would weaken school food nutrition standards. The rule, effective 2018-2019, would allow schools to serve 1% and nonfat flavored and non-flavored milk, apply for an exemption to serve refined grains over whole grains, and allow schools to not reduce salt levels in meals. Health experts say this rolls back progress to improve school nutrition and children's health. What do you think? Fortunately, you have a limited time—until Jan. 29 2018—to tell USDA you want better school food for Latino and all families!
Submit a Model Comment
Copy one of three model public comments developed by our Salud America! research team, then hit the submit button to paste it to USDA's website... MODEL COMMENT: GENERAL
For the health of Latino and ...
You know junk food marketing to Latino kids is a problem and degrades Latino kids' health. But how do you communicate this issue to others? A new framing brief by the Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG) can help you communicate more effectively and frame the targeted marketing of junk food to children of color as a health equity issue. Understanding and communicating effectively about how junk food companies specifically target Latino children is a critical step toward action and achieving health equity.
Targeted Marketing is a Health Equity Issue
Targeted marketing of junk food to Latino children is a major obstacle because food and beverage companies aggressively target Latinos in their communities and schools. California passed historic legislation this year to ban ...
Many American kids eat two out of three meals at school. Schools must offer healthy food and drinks, especially for Latino students who are more likely than their peers to face an unhealthy weight, unhealthy neighborhood food options, and unhealthy early development. That's why schools should offer plain water with meals—not milk. So says a new study by University of Illinois researcher Ruopeng An, which encouraged children to drink plain water with their school lunches. This simple switch from milk to water at school could prevent more than a half-million kids from becoming overweight or obese, and trim the costs of obesity by more than $13 billion, An's study suggests. "The nutrition profile doesn't change much when people increase their plain-water intake, but we ...
