In the small, multicultural city of Lynn, Mass., minorities make up almost half the population, with Latinos making up almost a third. With obesity on the rise in the area, many groups are stepping up to make healthy changes where they live, work, and play. Local corners stores, where many kids hang out before and after school, are well-positioned to make a positive impact on kids’ food choices—if they are marketing the right foods. A group of high-school students chose one popular corner store to help promote healthy snacks and make it easier for teens to pick apples over chips—contributing to a wave of new healthy markets sweeping over Massachusetts.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: The small city of Lynn, Massachusetts gets more diverse every day. The Latino population grew from 18% to ...
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the second-largest district in the United States, serving breakfast and lunch in more than 1,200 schools daily. Since the early 2000s they have been creating a healthy food culture that teaches students about healthy eating and introduces them to many new foods, while embracing federal nutritional standards as they improve over time. LAUSD has banned soda and junk food from campus, removed flavored milks, and brought healthy breakfasts to the classroom. A recent accomplishment, pushed by LAUSD Director of Food Services David Binkle and other school leaders, is removing what they call “kid food” from their cafeterias—instead serving healthy meals with flavors and ingredients from a variety of cultures and backgrounds—including ...
Thirteen-year-old Estrella Hernandez, a member of the Mayor's Fitness Council Student Ambassadors, is making waves with her idea for an innovative fitness app made just for youth. Her app, "WeWalk," aims to motivate kids to exercise by using technology that they are familiar with. Kids play games on apps all the time, but now they can lead healthier lives while continuing to play. After learning about health issues and how obesity is affecting other youth her age, Estrella was inspired to combine health and technology. She has already received $12,500 in funding from the 80/20 Foundation and HEB. Building the app isn't simple, as it involves maintaining users accounts, monitoring how much users walk, and using Geo locations. Once the app is developed and beta tested, it will ...
Salud America! and Community Commons invite you to a #GrowingHealthyChange Tweetchat about how to grow healthy change, from better food to more physical activity to healthier marketing, for Latino kids at 1 p.m. central (2 p.m. eastern) Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014. Growing Healthy Change is a new website from Salud America! to empower healthy community changes—improved access to healthy food/physical activity, healthier marketing, etc.—for Latino kids locally and across the nation. At the site, people can: map their school, city, county, state, or nation to see what changes are growing for Latino kids; find resources to start a change; watch and read about real-life “Salud Heroes” of change; and become a “Salud Hero” by uploading their own stories. Follow the Tweetchat on ...
Latino kids need Salud Heroes to help fight childhood obesity. Can you step up? Visit our new website, Salud America! Growing Healthy Change, to read stories about real-life Salud Heroes who are making healthy community changes—from improved marketing to increased access to healthy food and physical activity, etc.—for Latino kids in your neighborhood and across the nation. You can also upload your own Salud Hero stories and photos. Watch a video about the site and Salud Heroes...and be a Salud Hero today! The Growing Healthy Change website was created by Salud America!, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation based at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday. The ...
Want to fight Latino childhood obesity, but don’t know where to start or how to make a change? Start at Salud America! Growing Healthy Change. The new website is a first-of-its-kind clearinghouse of Latino-focused resources and stories to promote changes—healthier marketing and improved access to healthy food and physical activity, etc.—for Latino kids in your neighborhood and across the nation. Right now at the site, you can: Input your address and create maps at the school, city, county, state, or national level to see what changes are growing for Latino kids, or search by topic (e.g., healthier school snacks, active spaces, sugary drinks);
Find resources to start a change;
Watch and read about real-life “Salud Heroes” of change; and
Become a “Salud ...
Alicia Gonzalez, a young Latina with experience in community development, was eager to keep kids stay active, given the rise of local obesity. She partnered up with a local family foundation who wanted to start a running program. The result was Chicago Run a non-profit incentive based program which has promoted running to over 13,000 children.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: Chicago resident Alicia Gonzalez enjoys improving the quality of life in her community.
She has experience teaching Latino youth about AIDS, mentoring inner-city kids in Boston, and building private-sector partnerships to better people’s lives through asset-based community development (ABCD)—an approach to community development that emphasizes a community’s assets rather than its deficits.
Several years ago, she was ...
After realizing that patients were not participating in regular physical activity, clinicians at the Community Health and Social Services (CHASS) Center in the Mexicantown neighborhood of Detroit decided to try something different to get residents from this largely Latino community moving. Physicians like Maricela Castillo and Richard Bryce teamed up with local organizations to host the neighborhood’s first-ever 5K race. Because the 5K entry was made affordable, many of the 200 participants were CHASS patients. The clinic plans to make the 5K an annual event as a means to promote its other nutrition and fitness programs for patients.
EMERGENCE
Awareness/Learn: The Community Health and Social Services Center (CHASS) is a nonprofit clinic that provides affordable health care and support ...
Busy families on the go often turn to unhealthy fast food for a quick, inexpensive meal. But what if a quick, inexpensive meal wasn't always filled with junk? First lady Michelle Obama has enlisted Subway in her mission to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, hoping to merge convenience and nutrition. As the default kids meal options, Subway is offering apples instead of chips and either milk or water over soda. The meals are 600 calories or less, contain no trans fat and provide at least a half serving of fruit and three-quarters of a serving of vegetables. The restaurant will also begin a 41 million dollar marketing effort aimed at encouraging kids to eat more fruits and veggies. Signs will adorn the doors of every one of Subway’s more than 25,000 U.S. locations, ...
