People are more likely to remain physically active when they can do it outdoors; however, Latino kids and adults often lack safe places to walk, play, and be active. Great news! Playgrounds are not just for kids anymore. For example, the Marion Diehl Senior Center in Charlotte, N.C. (13.1% Latino) recently installed a new playground for all ages. The parks and recreation department in San Antonio, TX (63.2% Latino) has installed low-impact, outdoor gym equipment at 35 city parks and five libraries. San Antonio also provides free fitness classes, like Zumba, Yoga, and Boot Camp in parks across the city. Watch this video to learn more. The Trust for Public Land has installed 68 outdoor fitness zones in city parks across the country. The Trust for Public Land's Fitness Zone® ...
Food insecurity remains one of the country’s most troubling conditions that plague many Latino families. Feeding America has determined that Latinos are more than twice as likely to be food insecure as Whites. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) established the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to support food and nutrition assistance programs giving aid to low-income households. More than 20% of all Latinos are food insecure as compared to just 10% of all Americans and nearly 25% of all Latino children live in a food-insecure household. In 2014, of the 92 counties with a majority Latino/Hispanic population, 18% were among the top 10 of counties with the highest rates of childhood food insecurity. In order to reduce health disparities, it is critical to ...
Cities across the world have come up with unique methods to make it safer for kids and everyone to bicycle. Safe places to bike-and walk and play-are critical to reduce health disparities and improve Latino and all kid's overall health and wellbeing. In College Station, Texas (14% Latino) the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M designed a protected intersection, modeled after the Dutch Junction, with glow-in-the-dark bike lanes. Bike lanes are, in fact, a sound public health investment. The Dutch Junction is designed to separate cars and bicyclists using islands, moving bicyclists in front motorists and out of their blind spots. To improve path visibility, the bike lanes are coated with a glow-in-the-dark material that absorbs and stores solar energy during the ...
What is #RealSchoolFood? The Chef Ann Foundation (CAF), a national non-profit that works to improve school lunches and communities with tools, training, and resources is bringing awareness about healthier whole food lunches. Over 30 million kids eat school lunch daily, many of the foods are processed or contain unknown ingredients, reported PRNewswire. Considering kids more than half of their daily calories at lunch, and Latino kids are often in schools that don't offer as many salads and fresh fruits as their peers, healthier school lunches are a vital component in helping to reduce childhood chronic diseases, like diabetes and obesity. Working towards healthier school lunches, the CFA is now igniting a social media campaign with the hashtag #RealSchoolFood, to help bring ...
There is no doubt people are zealous about children's safety; we are zealous about children's health. What if these two groups of enthusiasts worked together? They would reduce time spent riding in a car: To reduce unintentional injury and death due to motor vehicle crashes; and
To increase time spent walking and biking to reduce obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Motor vehicle traffic crashes are the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths for children age 5 through young adults age 24 and the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths for children ages 1-4, after drowning. Keep in mind, this is with the latest advancements in child safety seats. Latinos, in particular, face disparities in traffic injury and death, as well as obesity, heart disease, ...
About 60% of kids under the age of 6 are placed in some form of non-parental care-early childcare and education (ECE)-during the work week. Thus, these settings are promising environments to provide obesity-prevention resources and establish physical activity habits early in childhood, particularly for Latino kids who are at greater risk for obesity-related health problems than their white peers. In 2012, researchers in Wisconsin developed a year-long, quasi-experimental study to examine the efficacy of the Active Early guide, an 80-page guide developed by experts and statewide partners in the fields of ECE, public health, and physical activity, to improve physical activity opportunities in ECE settings using low- to no-cost strategies along with training and environmental ...
Where your city spends money (public investment) determines if you have access to parks, sidewalks, nutritious food, and public transportation, all of which have a far greater impact on your health than health care. In order for parents to keep their kids active and healthy, communities need to provide safe places to walk, bike, and play. Unfortunately, many Latino neighborhoods are missing these places due to inequitable distribution of public funds. Read more about inequity in public spending here. San Antonio residents (63.2% Latino) have the opportunity get involved in deciding where the city should spend $850 million over the next five years. “In some ways we’re kind of battling against history,” said San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor according to one source. “You go ...
One hour of physical activity per day could offset the risk of sitting for 8 hours per day. However, regardless of physical activity, watching TV for three hours or more per day was associated with increased risk of death, except in the most active quartile (ie, about 60-75 minutes per day), where risk of death was significantly increased only in people who watched TV for 5 or more hours per day. In 2012, in The Lancet's first Series on physical activity, physical inactivity was identified as important a modifiable risk factor for chronic diseases as obesity and tobacco. Modifiable risk factor is something that a person can modify now to improve their health, such as quitting smoking, reducing body fat percent, or walking more. In July 2016, The Lancet published its second ...
By Dr. Patricia Braun, MD, MPH, FAAP Campaign For Dental Health SaludToday Guest Blogger We often hear about different ways to eat. More protein, less protein, more fat, less fat. It can be confusing. One thing isn’t confusing: we need to reduce the amount of sugar we eat and drink. Added sugars are playing a bigger and bigger role in making our nation unhealthy. Consuming added sugar causes cavities, weight gain and obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Tooth decay is the most common chronic condition in childhood and leads to pain, tooth loss, a lower quality of life, and is expensive to treat. And obesity, in our nation’s children has become an enormous health problem, especially for Latino ...
