According to a local news article, by this summer local convenient stores and large chain stores who sell food in the city of Minneapolis must offer healthier fresh food options. Most corner stores throughout the nation offer junk foods, that are usually high in sodium, added sugars and low in nutritious benefit- an unhealthy food environment for Latinos- who are currently reported to have the highest rates of obesity in the city (31.7% of Latino Adults Obese) and the overall nation. This new law is the first of it's kind in the nation, hoping to help combat diabetes, obesity, and other diet-related health risks by offering more convenient access and healthier foods throughout the city's corner stores and convenience stores. The law asks businesses to stock protein items, milk, ...
In the San Antonio, Texas area (69% Latino) families, health care leaders like Dr. Mark Gilger, and philanthropy groups like the Goldsbury Foundation are exploring what healthy and culturally fun Latino meals look like with the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio’s new Culinary Health Education for Families (CHEF) program. Aiming to be a new culinary health model for families needing help in preventing diet-related disease such as childhood diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, the goal of the program is to provide San Antonio residents with tools, resources, and education to lead healthier lives and encourage healthy weights for children.
EMERGENCE
Awareness/Learn: Dr. Mark Gilger, pediatrician-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital in San Antonio, has seen first-hand a local and ...
What's a good way to make sure students eat the new healthy foods schools are trying to implement across the nation? Taste Tests! A school district in South Carolina, Laurens 56 school district, has worked with kids, offering taste tests to try the new healthy school food swaps, before putting them on the school menu. Now new favorites in the lunchroom include collards and broccoli! All items are taste-tested, and given feedback from kids before approved, to make sure students enjoy new items like the chicken fajita wraps. Cindy Jacobs, the Child Nutrition Director for the district, worked from the very beginning making sure teachers and students saw the importance of the new nutrition standards, and asked students to get creative by making their own lunch menus under the ...
According to recent local news, kids in Arizona schools that have school garden produce will now get to crunch into their fresh-cut carrots. Existing law required that the Department of Health Services adopt regulations to ensure all food and or drink being sold at retail and provided for consumption be free from dirt, or disease- causing organisms. The new law just passed this month that would exempt fruits and vegetables grown in school gardens to be able to be washed and eaten on-site for immediate consumption. There were opposals of the bill, stating that kids could be at health risks, however, physician and House Minority Leader Eric Meyer said in the recent article that he has never known of any cases when kids would get sick from eating fresh fruits and ...
The Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) proposal is being reintroduced to help invest in better nutrition and more physical education for schools as well as create healthier communities in Illinois. The proposal was put into motion in Springfield, Ill, in May 2016, by the bipartisan group of state legislators looking to help fund Medicaid and invest in the health of their communities. Estimated to raise over six million dollars a year, the HEAL act would tax sugary drinks at a penny-per-ounce and go to support low-income and least healthy communities to have farmers markets, healthy food access, bike lanes, parks, and sidewalks.
CEO of the Illinois Public Health Institute and Executive Director of the Illinois Alliance to Prevent Obesity said in a press release, "Obesity costs the ...
In Contra Costa County, half of CalFresh recipients are children. CalFresh is a federally funded program, formerly called Food Stamps that helps families and children put nutritious foods on their tables daily and helps to prevent household hunger and reduce the greater risks for obesity, diabetes, and other diseases. May is “CalFresh Awareness Month,” where organizations and groups like the First 2 Contra Costa through the Family Economic Security Partnership work to increase CalFresh use and awareness of CalFresh benefits to the community. The coalition is led by the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano County and includes the Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department (EHSD), the Multi-Faith Action Coalition, the Ensuring Opportunity Campaign, and other ...
The south is a place well-known for deep fried foods, but now Natchez-Adams school district cafeterias in Miss. are ditching the deep fryers. The districts are working to have healthier options in their schools and increase physical activity breaks among the district, by replacing fryers with steamers, learning new ways to cook healthy foods, and opting to have more fitness breaks outside for students. The district's Public Relations Coordinator, Steven Richardson, said in a local news story that the schools are working on highlighting healthy living amongst students. The child nutrition supervisor, Shantoura Spears, also explained that the funding for the fryers has been paid through grants the school has been receiving and have helped the schools replace them with healthier ...
Many parents are unaware of the marketing kids see in their schools about food. Many times, kids are marketed unhealthy food options as large food companies sponsor school activities and events.
What does it teach kids when the products are featured in the halls, cafeterias, vending machines and athletic fields are the same ones that their teachers and parents tell them are not good for their health?
The UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has created a set of presentations to help advocates inform their communities on how unhealthy marketing practices contribute to an epidemic of poor diet among youth, and what communities can do to help ensure that their children grow up at a healthy weight.
Among these resources is a downloadable presentation on "Food Marketing in ...
Soda tax considerations in cities are growing in interest across the nation and in other countries around the world. Watsonville, a majority Latino community (81.9% Latino), is working on their own proposals in California, hoping to encourage other small town minority-majority cities, that if they can pass taxes on sugary drinks, any small-town city has a chance. Groups and organizations in the city are all working together to rally voters and get petitions signed that would propose a 2-cent-per-ounce sugary beverage tax. Christian Garcia, one of the organizers, gathered over 2,000 signatures from voters who were "very receptive" for the taxes, Garcia explained in a local video, stating how groups went door-to-door to collect signatures from around the city. Garcia and his ...
