Nearly 1 in 3 Latino kids is already overweight or obese by ages 2-5, an alarming trend that often continues into youth and adulthood. How can we prevent early childhood obesity? It will take public-private partnerships, more effective interventions, and more, according to a new report on a recent meeting of the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Roundtable, which engages leaders from multiple sectors to address obesity, includes Dr. Amelie Ramirez, director of SaludToday, Salud America!, and the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. The Roundtable's new report covers lots of early childhood obesity questions.
What's working to prevent early obesity? ...
Bilingual yoga instructor Rina Jakubowicz is launching the first-ever Spanish-language yoga teacher training, Esther J. Cepeda reports. The new training program will be delivered completely in Spanish. The mission, as Cepeda reports, is "to break down barriers in the yoga community and bring the positive benefits of yoga to more diverse populations including Spanish-speaking communities that may have historically lacked access, or that may be underserved."
Why Is This Needed?
About 4 in 5 yoga participants are non-Latino whites. Experts say yoga can boost flexibility and muscle tone with other benefits like improved cardiovascular fitness. Jakubowicz hopes to make yoga and its benefits more inclusive of Latinos and Spanish speakers, who sometimes have the perception that ...
Obese young adults in the U.S., especially Mexican-Americans, are at high risk of developing kidney disease, Health Day reports. "Even though chronic kidney disease typically manifests in older people, the disease can start much earlier but often is not recognized early on," said study leader Dr. Michal Melamed. After analyzing data from over 6,000 people, researchers concluded that 11% of obese Mexican-Americans between ages 20-40 had high levels of the protein albumin, which is linked to albuminuria, a condition often associated with chronic kidney disease. "Because treatment options for [chronic kidney disease] are limited, prevention is the best approach for those at risk," Melamed added. "A healthier lifestyle in young adults will go a long way toward promoting kidney ...
After two years of working on modernizing the current Nutrition Facts label, the US Food and Drug Administration has rolled out its anticipated new food labels. The latest changes will make it easier for everyone, especially parents, to pick nutritious foods for their children. The changes include: Bold and easy to read “Amount per serving calories.”
Packages that are between one and two servings, such as a 20-ounce soda, the calories and other nutrients will be required to be labeled as one serving because people typically consume it in one sitting.
“Dual column” labels to indicate both “per serving” and “per package” calorie and nutrition information for certain multi-serving food products that could be consumed in one sitting or multiple sittings.
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Between 2000 and 2010, strokes among young adults ages 25-44 increased by 44% compared to a 20% decreased among the aged, according to a recent study released in the Journal of the American Heart Association, Medical News Today reports. What’s causing the rise in strokes among young adults? According to doctors, the same lifestyle risk factors that affect the aged, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, may be causing the sudden rise in strokes among young adults. “When people think of stroke, they think of Grandpa who smokes and has high blood pressure,” said neurologist Lee Schwamm, director of Massachusetts General Hospital, Acute Stroke Services. “And while he’s more likely to have one, it doesn’t mean that if you’re young and healthy you can’t ...
Simply put, research shows that physically active kids do better in school and are healthier. Unfortunately, girls’ move less than boys. And they move less as they age, meaning they are at increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other preventable diseases that threaten quality of life. Let’s use #SaludTues on May 17, 2016, during the #GirlsAre Campaign and #MoveinMay National Sports and Fitness Month, to Tweet about how schools, communities, public health professionals, city leaders, and you can ensure that all girls have access to safe places to be physically active and encourage them to be physically active for life. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “How to Keep Latina Girls Physically Active”
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. EST Tuesday, April 12, 2016
WHERE: On ...
Pregnant women who drink diet beverages on a regular basis during their pregnancy are more likely to have overweight babies by their first birthday, according to a new study, NBC Health reports. For the study, Canadian researchers followed 3,000 women and their children and found that babies whose mothers drank diet drinks on a regular basis had a higher BMI z-scores that “were significantly higher than those of their counterparts.” “To our knowledge, our results provide the first human evidence that artificial sweetener consumption during pregnancy may increase the risk of early childhood overweight,” wrote the authors of the study, which was led by Meghan Azad of the University of Manitoba in Canada. Experts recommend pregnant women to add diet beverages to their ...
Eating white rice may increase the risk for type 2 diabetes -- a condition that affects millions of Latinos, according to a recent study by Harvard University, Univision reports. For the study, researchers reviewed “four earlier studies involving more than 352,000 people from China, Japan, the United States, and Australia who were tracked between four and 22 years.” At the end of their review, researcher Qi Sun and his team concluded that individuals who have three to four servings of rice a day were 1.5 times more likely to have diabetes than those who ate less. “People should try to make a switch from eating refined carbs like white rice and white bread to eating more whole grains,” Sun told Time magazine. Experts believe the high glycemic index in rice is to ...
Data from the National Center for Safe Routes to School show that children who walk or bike to school have a lower risk for diseases that affect Latinos disproportionately such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. To raise awareness of the health and academic benefits of walking/biking to school Safe Routes organizes the National Walk/Bike to School Day. Take a look at the events happening in your community go here. Also, watch how this #SaludHero pushed for policies to make it easier and safer for children to “bike train” or walk to school in Fairfax, ...
