On Monday, April 4, 2016, New York (18.6% Latino) passed the nation's best paid family leave policy-part of the 2016-2017 State Budget. "When fully phased-in, employees will be eligible for 12 weeks of paid leave when caring for an infant, a family member with a serious health condition, or to relieve family pressures when someone is called to active military service." The purpose of this bill is to help workers take care of their families without worrying about losing their paycheck, paid maternity leave included. The Unites States is one of three countries-out of 185-that does not provide paid maternity leave. Lack of maternity leave is one of many barriers Latina mom's face to breastfeed. Providing maternity leave could have a profound affect on Latino health. According ...
A new campaign from the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles is working to help the communities of Santa Monica, CA (14.1 % Latino) increase consumption of water and learn why it's important to drink water instead of sugary beverages. The campaign, called "Water: The Healthiest Choice" is hoping to help parents' increase their knowledge of the health benefits of drinking water instead of sugary beverages, especially for their children's health. Research has shown that sugary beverages, when consumed daily, increase the risk of diet-related disease in kids and adults. Latino kids often consume many sugary beverages, and with each sugary drink consumed the risk of becoming an obese adult jumps to sixty percent. The campaign suggests some ways to help parents to help kids drink more ...
Having a healthy lunch is vital to students who consume most of the day's calories at school. Schools in Oyster River Cooperative School District are learning how to work with flavor, spices, culture and more to help increase student's consumption of healthier school lunches in their schools. Themes like "taco Tuesday" are popular among students, offering them a variety of different dressed up fruits and vegetables along with a lean meat for protein in the crunchy taco offered. The district also just won the New Hampshire School Breakfast Challenge with a 69 percent increase in student's participation for consuming high school lunches. The school's director of school nutrition, Doris Demers, has been working with creative and dedicated managers and school board members that have ...
More and more cities, states and some countries, most recently the UK, are pushing towards a soda tax to help decrease obesity, and help fund health and wellness programs. The first city to have a successful attempt at a soda tax in the nation has been Berkley, CA, but now they hope to continue to raise awareness and show support to other cities working on a soda tax movement like Minneapolis, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle. In a recent article, Ecology Center Executive Director Martin Bourque stated, "Diabetes and other diet-related illnesses are destroying our kids' health, and sugary drinks are driving this trend. With this film, we want to show that communities can fight back and win, even against a corporate Goliath." The Film "Berkeley vs. Big Soda" is widely ...
Having fresh foods is vital for many schools across the country, especially for Latino kids who are more likely to be at risk for diet-related diseases like diabetes. Three school districts, Binghamton, Cortland, and Marathon are receiving a federal grant of $100,000 dollars to help students get more local fresh foods on their plates. Since 2012, the districts have been working to connect local schools with local farmers and build relationships to keep local produce in local schools. Working to continue the efforts and expand farm-to-school programs, the funds will help BOCES staff reach out to farmers and get more schools on board with buying local produce. Funds had been awarded in the past to BOCES and helped them train school staff in various activities like buying ...
Transportation Alternatives has organized a campaign to get people to pledge to quit using the word "accident" when talking about a motor vehicle "crash." Transportation Alternatives fights for the installation of infrastructure improvements that reduce speeding and traffic crashes, save lives and improve everyday transportation for all New Yorkers. Consider this: Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Altering language like this is a critical piece in re-framing the problem-unsafe streets designed for vehicles rather than for people. Altering language can also play an important role in highlighting issues in traffic fatalities and injuries as well as issues in access to safe streets. Unfortunately, many people in low-income neighborhoods are at higher risk for traffic ...
Peatónito is an urban planner by day, serving as Coordinator of Communication for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in Mexico and working on the “Shared City” strategy for Vision Zero at the Laboratorio para la Ciudad. By night, he's a masked defender of pedestrians. His story is featured as one of nine innovative solutions to traffic safety across the world, published in the first-ever issue of Vision Zero Cities: International Journal of Traffic Safety Innovation, by Transportation Alternatives in March 2016. The "luchador" guides the elderly across the street, pushes vehicles backward out of crosswalks, paints crosswalks and road markings, and stomps across the tops of cars parked on the sidewalk to demonstrate to residents that they should be able ...
New cooking classes at Weymouth Middle School are helping kids think twice about how to make a pizza crust and how to eat at home with new ingredients in their recipes. John Mullaney, the health class teacher said this idea came up after brainstorming ideas, and he discussed the idea of creating new healthier recipes with the school district's dietitian, Kelsey Massis of Chartwells Food Service. He wanted to help kids come up with new ingredients that use less sugar and less flour with his student's recipes while cooking in class. Mullaney hoped that kids would be creative, and they were. Students like Brook Pelley used skim milk and low-fat cheese in her macaroni and cheese, and Brook Ferbert who used a salsa that had a variety of fresh vegetables. Other students used ...
Healthy cooking challenges are not just popular on TV. Now schools in Fairfax Count, Va. are cooking up healthier meals in the Real Food For Kids (RFFK)'s Culinary Challenge and Wellness Expo to change school menus, offering kids the chance to cook up something different, healthy and tasty. To help change school menus to offer more healthy and tasty foods, the challenges gives kids the chance to cook up something different, healthy and tasty and help sprout new ideas into the school menu, all while staying in school budget limits. Twelve Fairfax County Schools competed for awards in three categories, including Smart snacks, Grab 'N Go, and Makeover Lunch Challenge. The challenge was to make a meal that would work within the schools nutrition, portion and cost standards. ...
