In a Florida school district that didn’t provide health classes in high schools, a health educator, Risa Berrin, and her sister, Valerie Berrin, worked together to raise the bar on health education with their Health Information Project (HIP). HIP is a peer-to-peer program that allows students to teach each other about health problems, prevention, and how to access to local health resources toward reducing obesity, suicide, depression and other issues.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: Risa Berrin was a health reporter for her college newspaper when she first started seeing how teens were unaware or misinformed about health and prevention. She became part of the solution, starting a career as a certified human growth and reproductive health educator. While teaching law classes at a Miami-area ...
Can a rap song or graffiti art help kids eat healthier? Dr. Kevin Strong wanted to give it a shot and compete with the unhealthy marketing that kids—especially Latinos—are bombarded with daily. So founded the “Dunk the Junk” movement to work in schools and through social media to tailor health messages to kids in a fun way to counter junk food advertising. He uses rap, hip-hop dance, basketball, and graffiti art to change what kids think is cool to eat. “I love basketball and I would see a million junk food ads every time I watched,” Strong told Style101 Magazine. “I was just really saddened by the all children that are coming in [to my clinic] real young, devastated by junk food exposure.”
The Need for Counter Marketing
In his many years as a community ...
To inform and educate the San Antonio community on just how much sugar is in the beverages people consume daily, health officials and community leaders partnered to launch the bilingual Sugar-Packed marketing campaign. After San Antonio’s previous attempts to tackle sugary drink consumption fizzled out, Nelson Wolff, judge of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, and his partners reignited a campaign against sugar with hopes to change the way residents look at sugar in beverages and its effect on health. The campaign includes print and online materials, including a sugar calculator tool, educational brochures, and posters.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: In 1997, Bexar County’s Health Collaborative formed as a coalition of health agencies that aim to improve the health status of the ...
When Latino kids choose to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and less soda and chips, they set a good example for friends and family. But what if they can’t maintain their healthy lifestyle at school? Read what happens when youth leaders work with their school board to get healthy, vegan and vegetarian-approved lunch items into their cafeteria, not only to satisfy their desire to eat healthy but to empower other students to make healthier choices.
EMERGENCE
Awareness/Learn: For Sandra Garcia, it took planting a garden to realize just how powerful healthy food can be, not only for a community, but for a culture. “When SWU [Southwest Workers’ Union] started the Roots of Change Garden in 2007, I realized how beautiful it was to grow your own naturally organic food,” said ...
Latino and African American youth as well as individuals belonging to a local coalition of health leaders joined forces to launch Open Truth, a counter-advertising campaign that exposes big soda companies’ marketing tactics aimed at youth and communities of color. The result was a series of poems and videos created by youth, as well as dozens of ads viewed by millions, a website, and a viral social media campaign aimed at getting those targeted by soda companies to speak out against Big Soda. EMERGENCE Awareness: By 2008, Christina Goette of the San Francisco Public Health Department and Shape Up San Francisco (Shape Up SF), a coalition of community groups and leaders interested in preventing chronic disease and promoting better health for the region, were already very ...
In the predominantly Latino city of El Paso, Texas, kids are priority No. 1 thanks to a community-school partnership that prioritizes physical activity and health for children. The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) created and its Get HIP Now program to provide elementary- and middle-school students with integrated school health programming, alongside before- and after-school physical activity.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: As early as 2005, leaders at the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD), an 83% Latino school district in El Paso, Texas, were becoming aware of student obesity issues. It seemed obvious that students could benefit from improvements to physical activity programing, according to John Adams, a P.E. instructor at the time who would eventually become the ...
How do you get an entire city of people to get up and moving? Build them new trails and places to walk! That’s what happened when Angela Mora and other El Paso city officials teamed with community groups to gather a small budget and launch Move! El Paso Fitness Trails. The initiative created 13 new walking trails for the community, expanding the opportunities for people to walk, get moving, and reduce obesity!
The Struggle to Stay Active in El Paso Angela Mora, deputy director of the El Paso Public Health Department, was well aware of the city’s growing obesity problem. A lack of physical activity opportunities was a big reason for these obesity rates. A few years ago, about 29% of adults in El Paso County were physically inactive, compared to state and national averages ...
Improved technology, like smart phones and tablets, is often blamed for increasing unhealthy, sedentary lifestyles in children, especially Latino children. But what if this technology could be used to actually promote healthy living? Learn how a non-profit in Austin, Texas created a free mobile App that connects folks ready to get healthier with countless opportunities right in their backyard. EMERGENCE Awareness: Chances are most Texans know someone, even kids, with diet-related health conditions. In fact, 42.8% of 4th graders in Texas are overweight or obese. Making healthier lifestyle changes can make a big difference, especially for Latino kids, who make up a significant percentage of kids in Texas and are more likely to be overweight. Fortunately, IT’S TIME TEXAS (ITT) ...
San Antonio student Michaelie Love knows that, for many high school students, the hour before school begins is spent socializing or cramming for tests—not in the cafeteria eating a healthy breakfast. Breakfast is included in the federal school nutrition program and is free or reduced-price for students who qualify. Latinos represent more than one-fifth of students participating in this federal program, but are they showing up for breakfast? Health professionals say skipping breakfast before school can lead to poor academic performance and unhealthy over-eating later in the day. Love wanted to make eating breakfast at school easy, healthy, and cool.
Breakfast Habits among Youth
The North East Independent School District (NEISD) is the second-largest school district in San ...
