Latino kids consume more sugary drinks than average, part of the reason they're more likely to be overweight/obese than their peers.
What can be done?
You're invited to join a webinar at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, Sept. 30, to learn about new local and national efforts to improve Latino kids' access to healthy drinks.
The webinar, sponsored by the national Council of La Raza (NCLR) and including Salud America!, is bringing together a panel of experts to highlight successful efforts from across the country to improve beverage choices and healthy environments in schools and other community settings: Rosalie P. Aguilar, MS, Project Coordinator, Salud America!, Institute for Health Promotion Research UT Health Science Center at San Antonio (the team behind SaludToday)
David Thomsen, ...
100 gardens in New York Schools, future jobs and college opportunities for underserved students...these are all just "Si se puede! moments", states Stephen Ritz, a 4th grade teacher that is changing the Bronx from the inside out. In food insecure (37%) and highly Latino populated Bronx County (54.8% Latino), New Yorker and 4th grade teacher, Stephen Ritz became a game changer for healthy foods. Starting gardens in classrooms since 2005, Ritz has relied on free resources, his own passion for healthy changes, and a heart for underserved kids to birth the Green Bronx Machine. Producing over 30,000 pounds of healthy fresh produce a year, changing students futures, and re-designing cities with living green graffiti walls, Ritz's passion for kids and communities to have ...
The Albert Shanker Institute released a report on the state of teacher diversity in the United States. Nationally, progress towards greater diversity is being made, however there is still a large need for minority teachers. The report studied nine cities: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The report found there were some pockets of development, but overall there was a lack of progress. “Diversity is a key component to equality and opportunity,” said Randi Weingarten, Shanker Institute Board President. “Where there’s a diverse teaching workforce, all kids thrive. [We] are calling for a national summit on teacher diversity in urban areas.” One of the key findings of the report determined that, ...
According to a recently published report from The Century Foundation, poverty concentration has resurfaced in the United States and Latinos have become disproportionately affected. Small urban cities, such as Syracuse, New York, have seen that 62% of their Latino population now lives in poverty. The report found that cities such as Syracuse have grown 12.6% since 2000, while large metropolitan areas have grown by less than 2%. The report found that there is a widespread growth of poverty concentration nationwide. This affects a wide swath of societal ills such as urban violence, police-community tension, and racism. One of the more intriguing findings of the report was that the Great Recession was not directly responsible for this increase in poverty numbers, except for Latinos. ...
Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) is the second-largest community college in the nation. Currently, 52% of its students are from minority racial or ethnic groups including Latinos. A large part of this is due to the school’s longstanding “Pathways to the Baccalaureate” program. The program is a consortium of 10 area educational institutions including NOVA, area public schools, and George Mason University and provides outreach to high school students that are more likely to face obstacles entering college. “The program is designed to breach the barriers of higher education,” said Everett Eberhardt, director of equity, diversity, and ADA/504 compliance at NOVA. “The purpose is to increase access to education for at-risk students.” Founded in 2005, the ...
Need help on getting funds for your school or communities initiatives for food projects, want to know how to engage the community towards healthy food access projects? Healthy food access portal was launched in 2013 by PolicyLink, The Food Trust, and The Reinvestment Fund to help communities looking to have healthy food access with resources to develop their ideas and businesses. Webinars are available as a resource on subjects like funding healthy food projects with the USDA, helping with store designs, as well as on subjects like women and entrepreneurs of color starting food projects. New information is always being added, so check out the full site ...
According to a new report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, Latino elders in California are more likely than other populations to be among the “hidden poor.” Single Latino elders and elders caring for adult children experience economic insecurity at higher levels, even if they aren’t near the federal poverty line. The study describes the “hidden poor” as those who live in the gap between the federal poverty level and the Elder Index’s poverty measure. “Many of our older adults are forced to choose between eating, taking their medications or paying rent,” said Imelda Padilla-Frausto, a UCLA graduate student researcher and lead author the study. The national federal poverty level estimates that a single, elderly adult should be able to live on an ...
Inspiring every child to get outdoors and be active, is the new initiative, "Every Kid in a Park" program. This program is an Administration-wide effort in partnership with the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Education, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Offering kids free passes, the program's efforts are on removing barriers for youth from underserved communities to get to their parks, public lands and waters. Latino kids are likely to benefit from this program and as many Latino Kids have little access to active spaces, studies show. Access to more active and green spaces may assist in building a culture of health and help in lowering the high rates of obesity in Latino ...
Many Latino students don’t meet daily recommendations of physical activity because they lack access to quality activity opportunities during school and they are burdened by barriers to access quality activity opportunities after school, such as safety, availability and cost. Kids that don’t meet daily recommendations of physical activity are at increased risk for obesity and other adverse health outcomes. Two PE teachers in Edmonds School District in Washington developed a before/after school program as well as a recess program to help kids reach 60 minutes of recommended daily activity on most days of the week. They developed these programs to be implemented in schools to reduce accessibility barriers associated with safety, availability and cost.
EMERGENCE:
Awareness: Jennifer ...
