Congratulation to California, where an ordinance passed last night in the city of Perris (71% Latino) requires restaurant's kids' meals to no longer serve sugary drinks as part of the default option of the meal. Now parents and kids can see the healthy choice as the easy choice when dining out. Families can still order sugary beverages for their kids, but as the American Heart Association warns, just one soda exceeds the limit for sugars for a whole day for teens and kids. One can of regular soda contains nearly 10 teaspoons of sugar and 140 calories. Policies that promote healthier beverages are important for many kids in the United States who consume at least one sugary beverage a day.
In fact, most two-thirds of children in the United States consumed at least one sugary ...
As many parents know, and research shows, US kids are not getting enough vegetables into their diets. Although there are many ways to hide greens into kids' diets, experts suggest to keep them in plain view on the plate. According to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 93% of US children ages 1 to 18 do not meet current recommendations for vegetable intake. However, blending spinach into your child's favorite strawberry shake may seem a tempting way for them to "like" spinach, the best way to offer vegetables is repeated exposure up to 8 to 15 times, explained psychologist, Lucy Cooke to NPR. Through her own research, Cooke found that kids trying new vegetables at school or at home, were more likely to eat more of the same vegetable three ...
Most people know that what you eat affects your health. Too much sugar, salt, or fat in a person’s diet can raise their risk for certain diseases. And, for the most part, we all try our best to eat better. Eating healthier can lower the risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other health conditions. In many Latino neighborhoods, fast food and corner stores often outnumber and are used more than supermarkets and farmers’ markets, resulting in inadequate consumption of healthy foods and overconsumption of unhealthy foods. According to the National Institutes of Health, a healthy eating plan focuses on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat dairy products; it also includes eating lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts, and limits saturated and ...
In recent years, Latinos have made great strides in improving their overall “state” of education. The dropout rate for Latino high school students is at an all-time low (12% in 2014) and even more (35%) are finding their way into a two- or four-year college. Despite all of this headway into education, Latinos often face unique barriers that prevent many from attaining a quality education. To help overcome these barriers, groups and organizations around the country have often sought out unique innovations to encourage more Latino engagement in education. In Goshen, Indiana (29.12% Latino population), representatives for Goshen College developed a unique approach to encouraging Latino students to enroll and succeed at their university. Richard Aguirre, the director of corporate ...
Pedestrians have a 90% survival rate if they are hit by a vehicle going 20 miles per hour, compared to only a 50% survival rate if hit by a vehicle going 30 mph. In 2016, Seattle, WA (6.6% Latino); Alexandria, VA (16.9% Latino); Boston, MA (17.5%Latino); and New York City, NY (28.6% Latino), among other cities lowered the default speed limit in some urban and residential areas by 5-10 mph. Speed is the most important factor to regulate to improve pedestrian safety for Latinos and all pedestrians, and can help boost daily physical activity, which is important for mental and physical health. The founder and director of the Vision Zero Network to eliminate traffic fatalities and injuries, Leah Shahum, says state permission is a key obstacle to traffic safety that cities have ...
In Oklahoma City, students at two local public schools are enjoying free salad bars donated by Dole Food Company and Homeland Stores as part of an initiative by the United Fresh Start Foundation to increase healthy options for students in school. “Healthy eating options are key for a healthy lifestyle, and that’s a high priority for us when it comes to feeding our kids,” said Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Aurora Lora told Business Wire. “I am very appreciative of our community partners for bringing these salad bars into our schools, supporting all the great work that our School Nutrition Services Department is doing to provide fresh, and great tasting food choices for our students.” The schools including Hawthorne Elementary school and Classen School of ...
For many college students, in addition to strict study schedules, adjusting to new surroundings and responsibilities, and new life experiences, one harsh reality that many have to deal with his hunger. Food insecurity – the lack of reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food – is common at colleges and universities across the country, and it has the potential to derail the educational success of thousands of students. According to the National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness, 48% of students polled for a recent survey reported food insecurity in the previous 30 days, including 22% with very low levels of food security that qualify them as hungry. In an effort to curb some of this concern on their campus, one university as ...
Heather Baril of North Attleboro's school district in Massachusetts (4.3% Latino) is working to take school nutrition a step further with her new tagline for the school's cafeterias: Feeding Healthy Futures. Baril is further extending the healthy changes made by school service teams across the district that helped introduce meatless Mondays and homemade pizza days by introducing more cooking-from-scratch and community-wide efforts to push healthy eating into schools. Baril hopes to implement school community gardens that will generate produce for school cafeterias and also work with local produce and chefs from local restaurants to create healthy and desirable dishes for students. How is she planning to make so many healthy food changes in the district? Reaching out to parents ...
In Vhembe-Mutale school district, sugary drinks have been banned since the beginning of the school year. The change has been successful and popular according to Health24, as parents like Tambulani Mbedzi explained that her child was suffering from headaches and found out that it was due to drinking a lot of sugary drinks at school being sold by hawkers. Children would buy two or three bottles of sugary drinks at a lower price from these hawkers that were selling sugary drinks to kids at school. The deputy principal at the school, Rendani Nemufulwi complained that because of these hawkers, that would even try to sell to kids secretly, kids were drinking tons of sugary drinks at the school and were less inclined to eat nutritious foods. Parents are happy about the changes, ...
