Five years ago, Christina Abuelo began an afterschool garden club at Sherman Elementary, an urban school located near downtown San Diego. Today the Sherman Garden Club flourishes with plant life, a tiny oasis in a neighborhood with limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The club has since grown to over 90 excited members who rotate through the garden every Friday afternoon and has inspired students and their families to live healthy lives.
Students have learned valuable gardening lessons such as composting, planting, and mulching. Farmers, beekeepers, and garden educators from the community have been invited as special guests, and most recently a chef-in-training visited the club to host a cooking demonstration of “Plant Part Tostadas.” The club had previously gone through a ...
Nicolas Rivard and Allison Hu, urban designers in San Antonio and members of Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association, learned about an upcoming street construction project that lacks walkable streetscape elements in their largely Latino neighborhood, and decided to act. The urban designers mobilized and empowered community members to get involved and request walkable streetscape elements, and the city responded by adding street trees, separated sidewalks, and landscaping. Today, through their recent project, Place Changing, the designers use “design activism” or “participatory design” processes to build urban literacy and equip residents with strategies to continue to get involved in city planning and development projects.
Walkability Low in East San Antonio Neighborhood
Nicolas ...
How do small retail stores enhance sales of healthy foods? A new report by Healthy Eating Research called, Minimum Stocking Levels and Marketing Strategies of healful foods for Small Retail Food Stores, reveals ways retailers can enhance sales of healthy foods in their stores. Marketing tips along with stocking level procedures show retailers how to adopt practices to enhance sales of healthier food items. Recommendations in the report were developed by national experts in food retail, nutrition and obesity prevention. Click here to read the full report. Register for the Webinar on the Minimum Stocking Levels Report today by ...
A study from BioMed Central Public Health simulated and reviewed the impact on health by taxing a twenty percent tax on sugary-sweetened beverages and internalizing the cost of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs). The tax scenarios showed consumers would be more likely to purchase more environmentally friendly meats including poultry and pork and more fruits and vegetables. However, unhealthy foods high in sugar and salt, such as cakes also resulted, not completely improving diets. In the four scenarios of models, all taxes would be passed onto consumers. Two of the tax scenarios included a sugar tax and two scenarios left the sugary tax out. Estimations showed that over 2,000 deaths could be averted, as diets would consist of reduced sugar and fat and increased ...
Derek Dimas, a registered nurse had a fun idea to get kids to eat healthier. Believing that kids needed a fun and positive environment to learn about fruits and vegetables, he invented a program called "Fun with Fruits." While in their physical education classes, students within the Corpus Christi School district learn how to create easy-to-make fruit and veggie kabobs. Dimas also invites parents to attend the classes, hoping to inspire healthy eating for the whole family. In a recent article, Dimas explained the need for this type of program, "I felt moved because these kids may not outlive their parents because of obesity. I've heard of three-year-olds with diabetes and young people with heart disease," he said. Dimas spends his own money to provide the fruits, vegetables, ...
Minnesota annually ranks as one of the healthiest states in the nation, but there still remains a wide gap in health outcomes among ethnic and racial minorities. To help address this, the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has recently awarded approximately $4 million over the next three years to support initiatives aimed at reducing health inequities. “The challenges our state faces are multi-faceted and complex. A multi-sector approach is needed to close the gaps and improve the health of all Minnesotans,” said Janelle Waldock, vice president of community initiatives and health equity at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. “What inspires me is the number of organizations that want to step forward and play a role. Blue Cross is proud to join ...
A recent news article stated that children in San Marcos, Texas have higher rates of obesity and overweight rates than the rest of the state and the nation. A new model for healthier kids menus, called Best Food For Families, Infants and Toddlers (Best Food FITS) can help restaurants implement change with healthier kid's menu alternatives. Researchers from Texas State University created the model with Nutrition and Professor, Sylvia Crixell. The Students with a grant of $150,000 reached out and discussed the new model of kids menus to various restaurants, encouraging them to implement the Best Food FIT's Menu to help combat obesity. Crixell explained that removing sugary beverages from kids' diets were significant. Latinos compromise 37.8 percent of the San Marcos population. ...
Improving health isn't limited to the doctor's office or to a lab. Quite the opposite, in fact. The zip code you grow up in is a better predictor of your health than your genetics. This is due to social and environmental factors that influence health behaviors. Take street trees, for example. A recent study, Neighborhood Greenspace and Health in a Large Urban Center, found that street trees have numerous economic and health benefits. Exposure to greenspaces can reduce sedentary time, promote physical activity, and reduce blood pressure, which is important for low-income and minority neighborhoods because they often lack aesthetically pleasing active spaces, yet are disproportionately burdened by increased rates of obesity and chronic disease. "We find that having 10 more ...
Why grow a garden? Various studies have shown the benefits of growing and maintaining a garden including better mental health, and physical health. Having healthy food access, along with space for physical activity are just to name a few. Having a healthier heart depends on eating right and having daily physical activity. The American Heart Association (AHA) encourages, at least, two to three segments of moderate to vigorous exercise in segments of 30 or 15 minutes a day. Doing gardening activities like digging, raking, weeding, watering, planting and sowing are considered healthy for the heart, as researchers found that these activities were considered moderate-to-high-intensity physical activity, according to a recent article. Stress-fighting benefits were also shown ...
