Getting school kids to try new vegetables is not always easy, but a non-profit organization is working with schools to get the word out about how "cool" eating vegetables can be for kids. Super Sprowtz is using healthy marketing, like videos, stuffed animals, costumes, and puppets with hopes to have kids try new vegetables at schools salad bars across the country. Characters like Oliver Onion or Suzy Sweetpea are just a few of the super hero puppets that make eating vegetables exciting. The non-profit has worked with the national campaign "Let's Move" and famous celebrities to market to families and kids about enjoying a healthier diet and being encouraged to "eat your super powers", which sounds more fun than "eat your vegetables". Sprowtz also works with Cornell University's ...
The National Institutes of Health has awarded an $11.3 million grant to researchers studying health inequities in youth in Tulsa, Okla. (14.82% Latino population). The funding will be used to establish the Children’s Health Equity Solutions Center, which will be a partnership between researchers from the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Center for Health Sciences and the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa. “The number one predictor in not just how long you will live, but how well you will live is income,” said Jennifer Hays-Grudo, a regents professor of human development and family science in the College of Human Sciences at OSU. “Unfortunately, in Oklahoma, if you’re born in the bottom 20% of the income level, you are more likely to die in the bottom 20 percent than in other ...
According to local news and a recent study of California school children, unemployment rates can increase a child's risk of becoming an unhealthy weight. Researcher and lead author of the study, Vanessa Oddo from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore explained that there is a trickle down effect that impact kids health. Researchers studied California's unemployment levels and house foreclosures from 2008 to 2012 along with heights and weights of 1.7 million school-aged children, more than half Latino, from the state's department of education. Students body mass index (BMI)'s were compared with economic indicators showing for every one percent increase in unemployment in a community, children had a 14% increase in BMI. However, foreclosure had a reverse ...
School-park partnerships are popping up all over the country!
In the summer of 2016, the Chicago Park District in Chicago, Ill. (28.9% Latino) provided Chicago Public Schools (CPS) $112,500 to implement a new initiative to watch over children walking and biking to 20 city parks for summer programs.
The program is modeled after CPS's Safe Passage, which has been around since 2009 to watch kids traveling to and from school in at-risk neighborhoods.
The summer safety program will hire 150 CPS workers and train them in relationship-building skills and de-escalation strategies to be the eyes and ears for children getting to and from park activities.
One of the parents said that the training helped her intervene in an altercation that she would have otherwise probably ignored.
"We want ...
The state of Alaska has started the "Play Every Day" campaign to help boost physical activity and reduce sugary drink consumption among families across the state, where two out of three Alaskan adults are now overweight or obese and one out of three Alaskan children are overweight or obese. The new campaign asks kids to drink more water and understand that they don't need sports drinks to play sports. Public service announcement videos for families are also available on the campaign's website, talking about the sugar content in drinks. Posters inform students that even one sweet beverage a day, like a powdered drink, can lead to cavities, weight gain, and type 2 diabetes. The goal of the campaign is to help reduce consumption of drinks that have added sugars, but also to ...
President Barack Obama recently reviewed one of the signature pieces of his administration in an article contributed to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Writing as “Barack Obama, J.D.,” the President reflected on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its six years of implementation. The President gave praise to the healthcare overhaul and pointed out how the ACA has sharply reduced the number of uninsured in the United States while improving coverage for those who already had it. The current enrollment numbers, as of February 2016, are 12.7 million enrolled through the marketplace, and nearly 20 million total between the ACA between the Marketplace, Medicaid expansion, young adults staying on their parents plan, and other coverage provisions. “The Affordable Care ...
According to a local news article, United Way of Central Ohio hoping to help Latino kids have healthier lives, noting from the 2016 Champion of Children report that reveals many of the challenges that Latino boys face. The report which includes local and national information finds that the growing population of Latino youth is living in high-poverty neighborhoods, limiting them to fresh food, quality schools, affordable housing and health care. Other barriers include language barriers, societal assumptions and cultural expectations of boys to work and contribute to the family. The report recommends that schools hire more Latino teachers, encourage Latino children to go into education careers and for teachers to become more culturally sensitive. Also recommended was for community ...
As visitors entered the public library in Clyde, Ohio, (5.9% Latino) students from Ohio State University (OSU) are encouraging them to think about the sugar amounts in their favorite sports drinks, coffee drinks, and juices, according to a local news article. The presentation was part of the "Rethink Your Drink" campaign aiming at helping library visitors to understand how sugary drinks impact their health. The presentations showed how Monster energy drinks contain 54 grams of added sugar or in regular terms, 14 packages of sugar, explained Katie LaPlant, the extension office's educator, according to the Fremont News Messenger. Research shows that consuming the added sugars in soda, sports drinks, and some juice drinks are linked to tooth decay, heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes ...
By now you’re most likely aware of Pokémon Go, an app that was more popular than Twitter for a time. Pokémon Go is a GPS-based augmented reality gaming app that forces players to go out and explore the outdoors in order to "catch 'em all" (Pokemon creatures). According to mental health experts, this gaming app can help individuals with depression by forcing them to go out of their home and do physical activity and interact with other individuals and friends. "The developers behind Pokémon Go didn't mean to create a mental health gaming app," psychologist John M. Grobol wrote for his site, PsychCentral. "But they've done so, and the effects seem to be largely positive." A 2018 study found that 33% of Pokémon Go players reported changes in social behavior since they ...
