Latino communities often lack access to safe parks and green spaces, thus are less physically active and at increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases. ChangeLab Solutions now offers the Complete Parks Playbook in Spanish, Los sistemas completos de parques, to help decision makers in Latino communities assess and improve their park system. Decision makers cannot determine park access by park existence alone, but they must take into account numerous factors: how people travel to parks; how parks are designed; what types of activities and amenities are provided; how, by whom and when parks are used; what types of plants and trees are planted in parks; how parks are maintained; and how parks are funded. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the ...
According to new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Latinos in the United States live at least three years longer than black and white Americans. The CDC reported that Latinos in this country live an average of at least three years longer than other racial and ethnic minorities. A Latino born in 2014 has a life expectancy of 81.8 years compared to 78.8 for whites and 75.2 for blacks. The new data reflects what is being called the “Hispanic mortality paradox,” in which Latino life expectancy has been steadily climbing since 2006 when it was 80.3 years. “On average, [Latinos] are low-income and have a poverty rate similar to blacks, making it surprising they have lower mortality and then in turn higher life expectancy than the majority ...
A study from Los Angeles, Calif. shows that high stress in Latino adults may have twice the risk of having obese children. According to a recent article, researchers looked at data from the Study of Latino Youth (SOL Youth) and stated that parental stress is a risk factor for childhood obesity among Latinos. High levels of stress were reported among Latino parents and obesity and chronic stress were prevalent among this population, explained researchers. Stress factors were determined from the Chronic Stress Burden Scale, including factors of difficulties at work or in a relationship among other stress factors, where data showed 34 percent of parents in the study had three or more stress factors. The doctors of the research later explained that the importance of stress on the ...
According to a new report, while college enrollment numbers for Latino males continues to rise, they still lag behind female Latinos in terms of college enrollment. This disparity increases as the level of higher education increases. The report, from Excelencia in Education, found that Latino males represent half of the traditional college-aged Americans in total. Other findings from the report were that Latino male high school dropout rates have decreased significantly. In 2014, the high school dropout rate for Latino males was 12% down considerably from 26% in 2005. The graduation rates for Latino males and females have proven to be similar, with Latino males at 49% and females at 51%. Latinos are also the second largest group of college-age males overall. In 2014, Latinos ...
Marketing to kids has been a long debated topic as cartoon characters, TV shows and smartphone game apps have been shown to influence kid's food choices. Quebec has had restrictions on child-targeted food ads since 1980's according to a recent news article and now Toronto wants to follow suit as well to help decrease risks of childhood obesity and diabetes. The board of health voted on Monday, April 25, 2016, to ban commercial ads to children under 16 years of age. The city's Medical Officer of Health reported in the same news article that 29 percent of kids in grades 7-12 were overweight or obese, and one in five students eat sugar or salty snacks more than three times a day. Latino kids are often more likely to see unhealthy ads for unhealthy foods and sugary ...
According to a recent study led by Duke Clinical Research Institute childhood obesity in the United States has not declined and severe obesity remains high. Dr. Sarah Armstrong pediatrician and director of the Duke Healthy Lifestyles Program said in a recent video in regards to the childhood obesity epidemic that, "Not seeing changes in the actual numbers, as this study points out, certainly is problematic, because there have been all the efforts aimed towards it." Researchers found that 33.4 percent of children between the ages of 2 through 19 were overweight and among those 17.4 percent had obesity. The results showed the continued increase of obesity among children from 1999 through 2014. Also according to the recent article 4.5 million children and adolescents had severe ...
New research suggests that mothers who perceive their child to be in fair or poor health are more likely to underestimate their weight. The study from the University of Houston's Department of Health and Human Performance found that a child's risk for obesity or malnutrition may be tied to the mother's misperception of her child's weight status. Surveying 70 low-income Latina mothers, the study revealed over 54 percent of the mothers surveyed with an overweight or obese child perceived their child as being a healthy weight. One of the main researchers of the study explained in a recent article that the way mothers perceive their children's weight is closely tied to their own weight, and often Latina moms seem to link health with weight. Researchers suggest that bilingual ...
In April 2016, PeopleForBikes released a new report, Quick Builds for Better Streets, looking at lessons from quick-build protected bike lane projects in Seattle, New York, Chicago, Austin, Denver, Memphis, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. The quick-build trend grew out of small-scale tactical urbanism projects where activists would modify a street by painting their own bike lane or adding cheap plastic posts. These projects demonstrate to the public how modified infrastructure-added bike lanes-could work in the real world. Access the new report, Quick Builds for Better Streets, here. Copy and share: Report to help cities adopt quick-build protected bike lanes. http://salud.to/21cixaz ...
A recent study from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, low-income families pay more for everyday items due to an inability to buy these products in bulk. As reported by CNN, researchers analyzed among the purchases of over 100,000 household items over the course of seven years. It was determined that low-income families were less able to afford the higher upfront cost of buying items in bulk rather than households with higher incomes. Two-thirds of U.S. Latino children live in low-income households and about one-third live in poverty. One of the key products studied was the purchase of toilet paper. In studying this trend, it was observed that 36 rolls of two-ply toilet paper might cost $15, but a roll of one-ply cost only $1. Researchers found that low-income ...
