Robla School District Gets Hydration Stations & Healthy Walking Program!



After United Way's Young Leaders Society, the Robla School District and the Health Education Council helped raise over $25,000 dollars to provide hydration stations at each school in the Robla School District (54% Latino), the district went a step further for health, literally. How? In the fall of 2015, after the Health Education Council met with students in their classrooms educating them on sugary beverages, the council also met with a small parent group at Taylor Street Elementary School to teach them about how to "Rethink Your Drink", educating parents on how much sugar is in the average soda, juices, and teas. Parents learned so much from the workshop that they wanted to know what else they could learn about. This conversation led to weekly nutrition workshops provided by ...

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Vote Goes Up For Santa Fe’s Soda Tax



Today, February 8th, 2017,  the City Business and Quality of Life Committee which includes two persons, Mike Harris and Signe Lindell, is scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. to consider the 2-cents-per ounce tax proposed by Mayor Javier Gonzalez. The meeting today will not be a public meeting but the full council is purposed to meet for a public hearing and vote on March 8th. The soda tax is purposed to increase health and ensure funding education for pre-k in the city. The proposal has support, according to Santa Fe New Mexican Local News, but Rio Grande Foundation is opposing the tax, accusing the proposal is a creating a way for political lifestyle police. "The resolution doesn’t lay the groundwork for anything but a healthier community, and that’s something I absolutely ...

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Celebrate National Drinking Water Alliance’s “Go for H20”!



Clean, accessible water is vital to the health of children, especially when it comes to reducing consumption of sugary beverages and keeping kids healthy throughout the school day. The National Drinking Water Alliance (NDWA) is a national coalition of nonprofits, academic institutions, individuals and advocates who are working to ensure all children have access to safe and clean drinking water. NDWA is working to ensure water safety issues, like what happened in Flint, are eradicated at the national, state and community levels, by developing legislation for tap water testing in schools and childcare sites. NDWA has not only urged the United States Department of Agriculture to add a water symbol to the My Plate graphic but also provides a hub of various water resources, including ...

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Utah Hospital Changes Policy for Healthier Vending



Aiming to mirror their mission "to help people live the healthiest lives possible", Intermountain Healthcare is removing all sugary beverages, candies and less healthy snacks from it's vending machines. Many nationwide health systems have also adopted similar policies including, Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. From March 1st of this year, snacks that have added sugars, salts, and saturated fats will all now be banned from vending machines, with new healthier food options based on nutrition and dietary guidelines. Since 2014, the hospital has been working to create healthier food environments, with cafeterias that offer healthy plates, and messages about eating healthier and being active. Over 100,000 people in Utah and Southern Idaho are living with prediabetes, stated St. ...

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No Free Soda Refills For France



In efforts to help decrease the rising obesity rates in France, the government has banned all fast-food restaurants, including many American chain restaurants from giving consumers free soda refills. Targeted to the youth, who are facing rising rates of diabetes, the law is working to limit consumption of sugary beverages, which has shown through research to be linked higher risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cavities, and behavior problems. According to 2014 data, the French are less overweight than Americans, at 15.3% vs Americans at 36.5%, however, France is looking to be ahead of the issue, working to prevent alarming levels of diabetes. Many countries across the world are working to tackle their rising obesity and diabetes rates, through the World Health Organizations ...

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Update: Illinois Backs Out on Sugary Beverage Tax



All the tax talk on sugary beverages that happened in January to help offset the state's Medicaid expenses and provide for obesity prevention, is now "off the table" according to WPSD 6 news. In a state where the majority of adults are overweight and 1 in 3 children in the state are considered obese or overweight, sugary beverages may only add to the health risks of the state and Medicaid expenses. Although it was reported that 65% of Latino Illinoisans supported the penny-per-ounce tax, the proposal is unsupported by Republican Senator Paul Schimpf and Senator Dale Fowler, who reported they're glad to see the sugary beverage tax thrown out, believing it would drive business out of Illinois to other close states. Research from The HEAL Proposal estimated that an increase in ...

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$6 Million Dollar Grant For Obesity Research



Two projects from the Keck School of Medicine of University of South California National Institutes of Health for obesity research have been awarded funding to support research focused on preventing and treating obesity-related fatty liver disease in Latinos. Michael Goran, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine, co-director of the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute and director of the Childhood Obesity Research Center at the Keck School, was the recipient of both grants and will be leading the research efforts. Prior work from the Goran lab showed that early introduction of sugary beverages to Latino infants was associated with higher prevalence of obesity. Going off this information, one of Goran's project swill examine how reducing sugary beverage consumption for ...

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Update: Sugary Beverage Tax Refined for Santa Fe


added sugar

After a new policy for a sugary drink tax was proposed by Mayor Javier Gonzales and questioned by the city council, Mayor Gonzales reminded Santa Fe City Council to consider the 2-cent-per-ounce tax to fund preschool education this last Wednesday, January 25th, 2017. Health is a factor in bringing the tax to the city, but Gonzales's main idea for the tax revolves around bringing equity in education to the many children in the city that do not have enough preschool slots or teachers, according to Santa Fe Mexican Editorials. The tax is estimated to bring in as much as $7.7 million a year to help fill the city's some 966 3-and 4- year-olds that are lacking a high-quality pre-K education. More conversations with Gonzales about his proposal is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, ...

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Denver Calls Out The Hidden Sugars With a New Health Campaign



Healthy Beverage Partnership (HBP), an initiative facilitated by Denver Public Health, has launched a new regional marketing campaign, Hidden Sugar. The HBP is a collaboration among six Denver metro local public health and environment agencies working to reduce sugary drink consumption through organizational policy adoption at community venues. The new campaign will run throughout January and February, and again in May. Denver Metro area residents should see the campaign ads on billboards, on TV, online or hear it on the radio. The goal of the Hidden Sugar campaign is to make it easy for parents and caregivers to see how much sugar is hidden in many of the drinks children drink on a daily basis. For example,  one 10-ounce juice drink has as much sugar as 10 chocolate chip ...

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