When Cecil Whisenton of San Antonio, Texas, transitioned his career from the restaurant industry to the installation of healthy vending machines, he learned of the tremendous burden of obesity across the country. So, in his work with HUMAN Healthy Vending—a Los-Angeles-based company that has franchisees working to place healthy vending machines across the country—Whisenton brought the machines to local YMCAs and a San Antonio high school. He hopes to bring the healthy vending machines to more schools in the future to give kids healthier snack and drink options earlier in life. He believes schools facing the pending changes under the USDA’s Smart Snacks standards can turn to companies like Human Vending to redesign the snacking for students.
The Problem of Unhealthy School ...
Lonnie Sclerandi, a Spanish teacher and soccer coach at Austin Independent School District, downsized his home a few years ago and no longer had land for a garden for fresh produce. He asked his school principal if he could plant a small garden outside the portable building where he taught. The principal said, "Yes." Sclerandi then researched online about what produce would be seasonal for central Texas, and how to cultivate a garden in the area. He bought gardening tools and seeds with his own money, and got started. He tended the garden for a year. Then his students started to ask him what he was doing—which eventually grew a cool new healthy change.
How the Garden Started
Food service leaders at Austin Independent School District (AISD), which is about 60% ...
In Tulare County, many people work for little pay on large farms in California’s fertile Central Valley. Some of these families aren’t getting proper nutrition, leading to diet-related conditions, like obesity and diabetes. When the local food bank revamped their nutrition policy to encourage more fresh produce donations, Sarah Ramirez, a local health leader used her hard-earned knowledge and passion to support that policy, and implemented a creative way to get the valley’s extra fruits and veggies into the hands of those who need them.
The Problem of Unhealthy Food in the Community
Awareness: In Tulare County in California’s fertile Central Valley, fresh produce grows all over the place. But for many area residents, this healthy produce doesn’t end up on their ...
Arely Perez loves to step outside her comfort zone. In college, she studied and enjoyed kinesiology—the study of human movement—but wasn’t as familiar with how it translated to the health of the community. So, as a graduate student at UT San Antonio, she got jobs in the labs of Drs. Meizi He and Zenong Yin, where she learned all about public health and coordinated studies of local programs to improve nutrition and reduce obesity in child care centers. “I became passionate about improving people’s health, thanks to both Drs. He and Yin, who gave me great opportunities to expand my knowledge and skills,” Perez said. Today Perez is applying her passion for health as a researcher at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. She also ...
A wave of shock swept over Olga Cardona as she listened to her doctor. “You have breast cancer.” Cardona knew nothing about cancer. She thought it was a death sentence. She was scared. She worried more when her insurance wouldn’t cover all chemotherapy. How could this be happening to me? A patient navigator calmed her fears. The navigator, a trained community health worker, taught Cardona what cancer is, got her in a breast cancer support group, and led her to resources to cover her treatment. Cardona, years later, now is in remission—and she became a promotora to promote health at the San Ysidro Health Center in California, where she was first diagnosed. “I wanted to pay it forward because I felt so grateful to everyone that had helped me through my ...
Jeff Anderson, a parent at Wolftrap Elementary School in Fairfax, Va., wanted his daughter to bike to school. Unfortunately, the school had no bike racks. He went to the principal and the school installed bike racks. But he did more than ask for bike racks. Anderson joined other parents, school officials, and community partners to improve one of the school district’s transportation policies. Now parents from all over the community have created safe routes for kids to walk and bike to district schools.
The Issue of a Lack of Safe Places to Play
Awareness: In Spring 2008, Jeff Anderson noticed that there were no bike racks at Wolftrap Elementary School in Vienna, Va., a city with a 12% Latino population. An avid bicyclist, Anderson wanted his then-first-grade daughter to learn ...
A new obesity management program will use family counseling, text messages and newsletters to control weight and spark healthier eating and physical activity habits in obese/overweight kids, thanks to a five-year $2.9 million federal grant awarded to researchers at the UT Health San Antonio. Researchers will develop and test the six-month program among 230 child-parent pairs in three pediatric clinics of the University Health System. Half the child-parent pairs will get in-clinic counseling on how to make healthy changes. The other half will get the same in-clinic counseling—plus phone counseling and culturally tailored text messages and newsletters to reinforce changes suggested through counseling. “We believe kids in the more intensive group will significantly ...
A group of local women in the park-poor city of Santa Ana, Calif., were desperate to have a safe place for their children to play. One mom, Irma Rivera, saw a child almost get hit by a car while playing in an empty parking lot, and she vowed to do something about the lack of safe active spaces. She and other moms went to non-profit group Latino Health Access (LHA) for support and found that the group was willing to champion the cause. Through teamwork, determination and perseverance, LHA and the moms managed to get land and funding to build the area’s first-ever public park and community center for people in south Santa Ana.
The Issue of a Lack of Safe Places to Play
Awareness: People in Santa Ana, Calif., struggle with poverty, language and other challenges, obesity, and ...
Because some kids tend to drink more sugary drinks than others, healthy beverage strategies have the potential to impact health in big ways. In Washington, community partners are teaming-up with schools and lawmakers to come up with ways to encourage kids to quench their thirst with water, not sugar.
The Issue of Sugary Drinks
Awareness/Learn: Childhood obesity is a problem in the state of Washington, which is 11% Latino. In 2012, 25% of Washington children ages 2-4 who received benefits from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) were overweight or obese, according to the state’s Department of Health. About 23% the state’s 10th graders were overweight or obese. Sugary drinks, like soda, juice, and sweetened milk, are a major ...
