Praxina Guerra and her mentor Cathy Lopez are true Salud Heroes when it comes to creating an environment of school health and fun. After becoming involved with a local student ambassador program and creating a school club to encourage students to adopt healthier practices, the pair collected funds for a water bottle fountain, also called a hydration station, to be installed in the school’s cafeteria. Their team also started monthly Wellness Wednesday fitness events, available to both parents and students, as a way to increase fitness opportunities for the surrounding community.
Seeing the Issue of Obesity First-Hand
According to a 2009, Bexar County assessment of obesity by school district, 40% of children enrolled in South San Antonio Independent School District (SSAISD) were ...
One word can describe Taco Bell’s drink lineup: Sugary. Taco Bell recently added six new sugary drinks and became the first fast-food giant to offer Manzanita Sol, an apple-flavored soda most popular in Mexico, a nod to it menus. Manzanita Sol packs a whopping 56 grams of sugar in a 16-ounce drink, and four of the six new drinks contain more than 20 grams of sugar in the chain’s smallest available size. Tell Taco Bell to stop offering Manzanita Sol and other sugary drinks to customers! Kids don’t need more sugar-bombs disguised as thirst-quenchers, they already drink many sugary drinks, pushing up their risk for obesity and diabetes. Taco Bell continues to launch new unhealthy beverages, including new flavors of sugar-filled slushy drinks called Freezes. The company ...
In a part of Kansas that struggled with obesity, one coalition stepped up to find new ways to help the local community make healthier food choices. How’d they try to do it? They started to change the local food environment by increasing the availability and marketing of healthy foods in local stores—and it worked.
The Need for Healthy Community Food
Awareness: Wyandotte County, Kan., which is 27.1% Hispanic and is home to Kansas City, had a growing problem of obesity, with 41% of school children listed as overweight or obese. Officials with the Latino Health for All Coalition were increasingly aware that many residents shop at corner stores or small grocery stores, which do not always offer fresh produce or a variety of healthy options. Rather, junk food and drinks are the ...
For Alcohol Awareness Month (April), let’s use #SaludTues on April 14, 2015, to tweet information, resources, and tips that can help reduce alcohol abuse: WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “Alcohol Awareness”
DATE: Tuesday, April 14, 2015
TIME: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT)
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
CO-HOSTS: National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (@NCADDnational), Institute for Research, Education, and Training in Addiction (@IRETApgh) Be sure to use the hashtag #SaludTues to follow the conversation on Twitter/X and share your stories and resources. #SaludTues is a Tweetchat on Twitter/X that focuses on a variety of different health issues. From September 2014 to March 2021, #SaludTues occurred weekly at noon CST ...
More than 23,000 people across the nation recently wrote letters to urge the Kellogg Co. to stop marketing sugary foods to families on their Dias Grandiosos website. The letters, which highlighted how Kellogg’s targets Spanish-speaking moms with family-oriented messages for meals that are high in sugar and salt, were collected by Salud America!, an obesity research and communication network funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Salud America! leaders delivered the 23,000 letters to Kellogg’s this week. We will post their response here in coming days. Why is this effort so important? Food and beverage marketing influences kids’ diets and disproportionately focuses on unhealthy products, studies show. We believe families need healthy food options—rather ...
In the Fairfax County Public School District in Fairfax, Va., a parent group called Real Food for Kids had rid school cafeterias of highly processed junk foods and improved the nutrition of school snacks and menus. But the change was not very visible to students. So the group, led by parent JoAnne Hammermaster, helped bring a fresh food stations showcase the healthier selections—and add new ones—for students at district schools.
The Need for Healthy School Food
Awareness: Childhood obesity is a priority for the parent group Real Food for Kids (RFFK), which pushes for healthy changes in the Fairfax County Public School District (FCPSD), a 22% Latino district in Fairfax, Va. In 2012, for example, RFFK drove FCPSD leaders to remove foods with artificial dyes, additives, and ...
What can be done to help more kids be active? One of the greatest ways to address inactivity in children is to reach kids is where they spend most of their time—at school. Research has shown that programs that offer physical activity, both during school and after school hours, not only help kids remain active and prevent obesity, but also help students perform better academically. On March 31, 2015, let's use #SaludTues to tweet about ideas, tips, stories and strategies to work toward a healthier school fitness environment: WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “How to Bring Fitness Back to Schools & Why This Matters”
DATE: Tuesday, March, 31, 2015
TIME: Noon CST (1:00 PM ET)
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
CO-HOSTS: Institute of ...
Do kids eat too much pizza? According to a recent study published in Pediatrics, pizza is the second-greatest source of caloric intake for youth ages of 2-19. Researchers also learned that on any given day 1 in 5 kids eat pizza and that when they do, they consume an additional 230 calories, 5 grams of fat, and 484 milligrams of sodium. When asked by reporters from ABC-7 what he thought about the study's findings, Daniel Cisneros a student from Canutillo High in El Paso, Texas responded: "I'm not surprised whatsoever. I think kids do eat too much pizza and they don't pay attention to much of the health facts that are involved with it." Reporters at ABC-7 also looked at what a typical school lunch menu looks like for local schools and found that on average pizza is served ...
The Salud Heroes video series shows how real people have made healthy changes for kids across the country, to inspire others to make similar changes. Now the series can be called "award-winning." More than 40 awards have been given to the Salud Heroes video series and the Salud America! website. Salud America! is a childhood obesity research and communication network funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by Dr. Amelie Ramirez of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. The recognition is from the AVA Digital Awards, Communicator Awards, Telly Awards, Aurora Awards, Web Health Awards, HERMES Awards, Davey Awards, and W³ Awards. Just this week, Rick Carrillo, Salud America! TV producer/director, was named a finalist for the "Best in ...
