You may have heard the saying: “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but what if your doctor actually prescribed fruits and vegetables for what ails you? In Forest Grove, Ore., a health clinic and farmers market teamed up to help prevent obesity and fight disease by providing patients with prescriptions for healthy foods. Fruits and vegetables are what the doctor ordered, as Forest Grove families visit their local healthcare providers to eat their way to healthier futures.
Healthy Food Options in Local Neighborhoods
Awareness: Kaely Summers, nutrition, and market access coordinator of Adelante Mujeres, a nonprofit that organizes a farmers’ market in Forest Grove, Ore. (23.1% Latino), was well aware of the dietary health issues faced by community residents. U.S. Latinos ...
Fresh produce can be a rare commodity in Nogales, Ariz., where 17% of children are food insecure. Yolanda Soto saw the need for families all across Arizona to have fresh produce to improve nutrition and fight obesity. When Soto saw still-edible fresh produce being dumped into landfills every day, she had an idea for a fresh produce distribution program that rescues this food and provides it to food, insecure families. The program, Produce on Wheels - With Out Waste (P.O.W.W.O.W), now gives families, churches, communities and schools more access to fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be considered garbage.
Food a Crisis in Nogales
Yolanda Soto started helping families in food-insecure areas of Nogales, Ariz. (95% Latino) since January 1996, when she ...
Spreading the word about how to improve health is a dire need. That’s why we created the Salud America! program. We recently won a trio of Web Health Awards for our digital efforts to raise awareness for health from the Health Information Resource Center, which gives awards twice annually for online health information. We earned a “gold” award for our @SaludAmerica Twitter/X feed, a "silver" award for our Growing Healthy Change Platform and a "bronze" award for the Salud Heroes story "Wild About Health." Please help us continue to raise awareness of health issues and solutions by following us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and ...
California teen Elena Dennis wanted to help kids have healthy diets. What better way than to encourage them to learn how to make fresh foods? Dennis, while a high school senior, cooked up an idea for a camp that helps kids discover the fun of learning how to cook, and how to prepare and eat healthy foods from scratch. Bringing kids awareness of healthy foods, she also took the camp on local field trips to farms and farmers’ markets.
The Need for Fresh Foods Locally
Awareness: At the young age of 12, Elena Dennis of Novato, Calif. (23.1 % Latino), started developing a passion for cooking thanks to her father’s home-cooked meals and her attendance at Operation C.H.E.F., a nutrition-based cooking summer camp for kids and teens. “I’ve always been a believer in home-cooked ...
Did you know Applebees and IHOP restaurants have taken soda off kids menus and New York City Restaurants now show consumers which items are high in sodium? Choosing the healthier option when eating out can sometimes be confusing as most restaurant foods have high levels of either fat, sugar or sodium. MomsRising.org and Center for Science in the Public Interest are holding a #FoodFri Tweet Chat, Friday, December 18th, 10-11am PT/1-2pm ET to discuss how to eat healthfully while eating out. Participants will offer helpful suggestions for eating out, discuss efforts to improve restaurant kids' menus, and highlight ways to support access to healthier options in the community. To join this discussion, follow #FoodFri on ...
According to a recent article, vending sales have declined by one percent to $4.5 billion in 2014. This is a great advancement in healthier choices for most schools and cities, that are changing vending machine options to encourage healthier foods. However, not all vending machines are made the same, many include highly processed foods that are high in sodium and sugar. Working on the future of vending machine sales growth, is PepsiCo Inc. with their new marketing for vending machines, the Hello Goodness Brand. Thier aim is to help bypass the many health concerns that schools and cities across the nation are concerned about with soda and candy as being the main options in vending machines. The new machines are planned to hold more "healthy" options, including Naked Juice, Lays Oven ...
In November 2015, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy visited John C. Fremont High School's Gardening Apprenticeship Program. The schools program encourages students to learn how to grow healthy foods and utilize the foods towards cooking healthy dishes. The program supports healthy initiatives in Latino inner city neighborhoods like Los Angeles (48.4% Latino) that are less likely to have access to fresh foods and are dealing with high rates of childhood obesity. Students involved in the 12-week after-school gardening apprenticeship program learn to grow food and cook healthy dishes. The students enjoy a 1.5-acre site that holds the students fresh vegetables like, potatoes, peas and beets. Many of the students enjoy trying the new foods and learning about new vegetables they had never ...
Although maintaining a healthy weight is critical for health promotion and disease prevention, the complex cellular and molecular mechanisms of physical activity are not fully understood. In October, 2014, the National Institute for Health (NIH) convened a workshop entitled ‘‘Understanding the Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Physical Activity-Induced Health Benefits’’ to identify gaps in current knowledge, obstacles to obtaining that knowledge, and possible solutions that would advance the field. Working groups addressed physiological mechanisms by which acute and adaptive responses to physical activity benefits multiple tissues and organ systems and how these systems are altered by age, body composition, fitness level, and exposure to exercise. In response to ...
Many people, including Latinos, live in areas with poor access to supermarkets and easy access to corner stores, also called tiendas or bodegas. Research indicates that when corner stores offer a wider selection of healthy foods and promote them, people are more likely to buy them and eat healthier, according to our new infographic on tiendas/bodegas, which is part of the new Salud America! Better Food in the Neighborhood research package on the latest science and recommendations on healthy food options. Share this infographic ...
