Many people across the U.S., including Latino families, live in food deserts, low-income areas where the nearest grocery store is more than a mile away. This can limit what families in these areas eat, especially when low-cost, unhealthy fast food is closer to home than the supermarket. The data-collecting website Walk Score helps people make more informed decisions about where to live, like finding an apartment within walking distance of everyday errands and close to public transportation. Recently, they've announced a new ranking of the best and worst U.S. cities for access to food based on their database of local places and their Travel Time API and ChoiceMaps technology. The question: What percent of a city's residents can walk to a grocery store from their home ...
For many years schools have relied on candy or cookie dough sales to raise money. However there are other options to food sales for fundraisers, one of them being a Read-a-Thon. A Read-a-thon, similar to any marathon, is where participants ask donors to give them money for every reading session. Students can have family and friends donate a few dollars for every 30 minutes read per week, a junk-food free activity. One website offers a way to host these Read-a-thons online to allow donors to use credit cards for easier use and for teachers to track student participation in a user friendly way. Visit their webpage on how to host a Read-a-thon and let Salud America know how the Read-a-thon goes in your ...
Alliance for a Healthier Generation provides a guide for healthy fundraisers, giving these 10 examples of how to replace food sale fundraisers with healthy alternatives; Crestview Elementary in Carlisle, PA held a fundraising campaign called Promotion Motion. Students obtained sponsors and then participated in various challenges each week such as TV Free Week, No Fast Food Week and a Family Fitness Challenge. Teachers and parents participated and there was a tremendous response from local businesses. They raised $31,322 in six weeks of healthy activities!
High Bridge Elementary School in Prince George’s County, MD raised $3000 during a 30 minute “Fun Run.” Students asked for donations per lap and ran as many as they could in 30 minutes. The funds were to be used for a new ...
New research by the Yale Rudd Center explains how marketing negatively not only affects young children, but also impacts adolescents aged 12 and older. “[The food industry] considers children ages 12 and older to be appropriate targets for marketing that encourages consumption of products that can harm
their health. Yet recent research provides convincing evidence that unhealthy food marketing also negatively affects children 12 years and olde,” Yale Rudd Center notes in the report. Highlights from the report include: The adolescent brain is highly vulnerable to marketing, especially when it’s pushing really tempting stuff.
The ways kids are being targeted – through social media and mobile phones – can seem like fun and games. Making it even harder to ...
Voices for Health Kids has put together a comprehensive toolkit on Competitive Foods. The toolkit includes the 100+ page Master toolkit, "Make Food Choices an Easy A," which includes sections on recruiting, engaging, and mobilizing advocates to fight for healthier school foods. By engaging, organizing and mobilizing communities across the country, Voices for Healthy Kids aims to ensure that every child has access to healthy foods and drinks at home and in school, safe streets for biking and walking and safe places to play after school. This toolkit is designed to help coalitions educate their communities on ways to make this vision a reality. Along with the Master Toolkit there are fact sheets to give to advocates and decision makers, flyers, postcards, web banners, print ads, ...
A March 2014 report from Bridging the Gap, found that Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs do make a difference in the amount of active transportation that kids participate in. According to the report, active travel was 60% higher in schools that had a Safe Routes to School program. The report also found that total number of schools participating in SRTS has grown by approximately 54% from 14.2% in 2006-2007 to 21.8% in 2012-2013. Results for the report came from surveys that were distributed to administrators at nationally representative samples of U.S. elementary schools. Read the full report here. ...
Walking or biking to school is a great way to get more kids moving. If you're interested in practical ways to keep kids active, tune in to the Build Your Own School District Policy to Advance Safe Routes to School webinar hosted by the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. This webinar will take place on March 3, 2014 at 2 pm EST and will discuss how to use a new on-line workbook to create your own policy. Find this webinar and more on the SRTS webinar page. ...
A new report entitled New Mexico Childhood Obesity 2013 Update provides the latest information on the prevalence of childhood obesity in the state. For this report the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) measured the body mass index (BMI) percentile of 7,731 kindergarten and third grade students from 59 randomly selected public elementary schools. Although the percentage of overweight and obese third graders had decreased since 2010 (from 38.7% to 34.7%), the same was not true for kindergarteners. Between 2010 and 2013, obesity rates for kindergartners increased from 13.2% to 13.7%. Findings also document the highest prevalence of obesity among American Indian third grade students (29.5%), compared to Hispanic (22.8%) and White (12.8%) students. While obesity rates dropped in ...
Want to get better water access at your school but don't know where to start? The Water Works Implementation Guide can help you develop a comprehensive program to increase access to safe, appealing, low-cost drinking water sources in your school. It also provides ideas, materials, and resources to help you increase water consumption among the school community. Finally, the guide provides resources to help you evaluate the impact of your water program. The guide can be found at waterinschools.org, which also houses fact sheets and case studies about schools that have brought water back on to campus. Development of this guide was supported by a grant from the San Francisco Foundation and from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its Healthy Eating Research program. Check ...
