A new report highlights Latino childhood obesity challenges and potential solutions that were discussed at the 2nd Annual Scientific Summit of Salud America! The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children. The summit, from Sept. 22-24, 2010, in San Antonio, showcased the innovative Latino childhood obesity research being done by the program's 20 pilot investigators. The investigators, from 11 states around the nation, presented the progress they’ve made on their two-year, $75,000 pilot projects to the audience of 75 of their peers and experts in the field. “I have to tell you, we’re very excited about the impact our pilot investigators are making,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America!, which is led by the ...
Childhood obesity is one of the biggest health problems in the nation, especially among Latinos. About 20% of Latino children between ages 12-19 are obese, compared to 18% of all American children. "You can say it's the main problem facing our community," said Dr. Felipe Lobelo, who specializes in nutrition, physical activity, and obesity at the CDC. "Unfortunately, we (Hispanics) are among the groups with the highest rates of obesity in both adults and children, and we have to do something about it." Dr. Lobelo offered these tips to help parents get started on preventing obesity: 1) Eat more fruits and vegetables. Eating fruits and vegetables is essential to fighting childhood obesity. Parents and guardians can add fruits to their kids' diet by chopping them up and ...
Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, recently discussed challenges and solutions to Latino childhood obesity as a guest on “Conversations on Health Care,” a weekly radio show airing in Connecticut, Minnesota and Michigan made possible by the Connecticut-based Community Health Center, Inc. The show features experts in health care innovation and reform. Dr. Ramirez talks about the Latino childhood obesity epidemic and her Salud America! program’s efforts to reduce the epidemic. Dr. Ramirez has spent 30 years directing many research programs focused on human and organizational communication to reduce chronic disease and cancer health disparities affecting Latinos. Listen to the ...
Parents, especially minorities, tend to underreport their children's weight, meaning estimates of obesity and body mass index (BMI) based on parent-supplied data may miss one in five obese children, according to research presented at the recent 57th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine. Researchers compared the measured height and weight of 1,430 children at a clinic with the values their parents reported. Almost half of the parents underestimated their child’s weight. Hispanic/Latino and black parents made larger errors than white ...
Check out these funding opportunities in childhood obesity research: People’s Garden School Pilot Program
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is making available $1 million for a People’s Garden School Pilot Program to teach students involved in the gardens about agriculture production practices, diet and nutrition, and more. Applications are due November 8, 2010. Ladder to Leadership
Ladder to Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Community Health Leaders seeks to help local, early- to mid-career professionals serving vulnerable populations develop leadership skills. The next opening, for Kansas City, Mo., opens October 18 and closes December 17, 2010. Active Living Research Grants
Active Living Research, an RWJF national program, is seeking proposals for ...
Dr. Shari Barkin, a grantee of Salud America! The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research Nework to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children and a Vanderbilt University pediatric researcher, has been awarded a new $12 million NIH project, “Growing Right Onto Wellness (GROW): Changing Early Body Mass Index (BMI).” The seven-year project, which teams Vanderbilt’s Department of Pediatrics with Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation, will bring 600 families to their neighborhood park facilities and provide a curriculum specially designed to fit a variety of ethnic groups. The project was one of four funded through the NIH’s $49.5 million Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research (COPTR) program, which is among the first long-term obesity prevention and treatment ...
Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children, which is led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, is observing National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month and encouraging people to join us and get involved. Earlier this year, a resolution was unanimously passed in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate designating September as National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, to bring attention to this growing epidemic. Mexican-American children are more likely to be obese or overweight (38%) than children overall (31.9%), putting them at greater risk for chronic disease and shorter lifespans. In repsonse, Salud America! formed in 2008 to increase the number of researchers, ...
More P.E. classes in schools? Taxes on snacks and sodas? The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is issuing a last call for suggestions on the best ways to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic. Share your thoughts in RWJF’s online forum, where our program officers are leading discussions about ensuring nutritious foods in schools, building more sidewalks and bike lanes, restricting food marketing, and unlocking school gyms and blacktops for community use outside of school hours. Give us your two cents before the forum ends this Monday, Aug. 16, 2010. More than 100 comments have been posted so far, with the topic of physical fitness in schools attracting the liveliest discussion. But what about other strategies, such as: Making certain foods and drinks cheaper—fruits, ...
The dramatic Salud America! "Did You Know" Latino childhood obesity video, which frames the challenges of the epidemic, already has won several film awards and been seen more than 5,000 times on YouTube. Now Latina author Barbara Trujillo Gomez has written about the video in a new blog post. Trujillo Gomez, author of "...Barbara por Atras" A Latin Woman's Guide to Fitness, wrote that the video sent chills up her spine and helped illustrate the reasons behind Latino childhood obesity.
How is it we can sit and continue to watch this happen? There is an epidemic in childhood obesity and Latinos are affected by far more so than non-Latino whites and African Americans. Our Latino kids are suffering from diabetes and heart disease, have a higher BMI, and indulging in junk food. Latinos ...
