Hawai'i is a place known for its beauty, but now it may be known for more than beauty as it strives for health and wellness with Kaiser Permanente Hawai'i who has awarded nearly $800,000 dollars towards supporting nonprofits that focus on behavioral health support, preventive screenings, and healthy eating. The commitment behind Kaiser's support is to reduce health disparities in Hawaii, where the Latino population (10.4%) saw a 165% growth since 1990 and continues to grow consistently, according to Hawaii News Now. Taking a stand to help all those in Hawaii, Kaiser Permanente is working in low-income communities to help improve access to healthy lunches in schools, vision and oral screenings, education, mental health and more. Over eight non-profits have received the funds and ...
There are many options for dining out these days, but which restaurants offer healthier and more sustainable options for families? REAL, standing for Responsible, Epicurean, and Agricultural Leadership, is a nationally recognized mark of excellence for food and foodservice operators committed to holistic nutrition and environmental stewardship. The United States Healthful Food Council (USHFC), established in 2012, works to help restaurants become REAL Certified in three areas that show conscious health for the environment and the people. The goal is to make sure healthy choices are highlighted and offered, and that unhealthy options are limited or changed for families dining out. Through this certification, healthy changes are being made in restaurants all over the ...
SaludToday Guest Blogger
UnidosUS, Formerly: National Council of La Raza (NCLR) The holidays are upon us. So is the temptation for Latino and all families to eat, drink and be merry—but there are ways to approach the season with an eye toward choosing nutritious food, cooking healthy meals, and increasing physical activity in order to enjoy better health. These lessons are at the heart of UnidosUS's Comprando Rico y Sano program. The program, led by UnidosUS's Institute for Hispanic Health with support from WalMart Foundation, uses a culturally and linguistically sensitive approach and community health workers—called promotores de salud—from 20 partner groups to reduce local hunger and instill healthy shopping and eating habits among Latinos. UnidosUS trains the ...
We all know that breastfeeding saves live and money, yet many moms, especially Latina moms, do not meet their own personal breastfeeding goals. Why not? According to a framing brief by Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG), the story on breastfeeding is narrowly framed around a portrait of the mother and baby rather than the context of real women's lives in which it takes place. Consider why Starbucks' executives get lactation rooms, but baristas have to lock themselves in the bathroom to pump breast milk. Advocates should look beyond the portrait towards to the landscape-social, cultural, political, structural, and environmental factors that make it difficult to breastfeed, like lack of support in hospitals, insufficient time and space in the workplace, unfriendly businesses, ...
Halloween and Dia de los Muertos are a few days away. Thanksgiving and Christmas after. Yup, holiday season is upon us. That's why, as holiday parties and performances stack up on busy calendars, pediatrician Diana Bojorquez of Kaiser Permanente has five big tips to keep Latino adults and kids healthy and happy, and lower their risk of weight gain and associated health issues.
1. Get enough sleep.
It’s important for everyone to maintain a regular shut-eye schedule – sleep restores and repairs our bodies, not to mention plentiful sleep helps with weight loss and mental capacity, among other health benefits. Adults should get 7 to 8 hours of sleep, and children need more, with very young ones needing as much as 12 hours nightly.
2. Prevent illness.
There are little things, ...
Making healthy choices is complex. In this digital age, people are bombarded by conflicting health messages and face social and environmental barriers to carry out the most basic essentials of healthy lifestyles-eating healthy and being physically active. Latinos face added barriers to making healthy choice due to lack of access to healthy food and safe places to walk and play. It's Time Texas interviewed 50 individuals in the government, healthcare, insurance, K-12 education, academic, business and community sectors across Texas to get a better understanding of these barriers and identify local opportunities and strategies to address and remove these barriers. They compiled these interviews into a white paper and six case studies, Building a Healthier Texas. The health and ...
Data-driven policy is winning in Santa Monica, Calif. (13.1 %Latino). Santa Monica is committed to improving resident's health by looking at housing, transportation, parks, and youths, thus was one of seven communities to receive the 2016 RWJF Culture of Health Prize. In 2012, Santa Monica developed a Wellbeing Index to measure what was hampering or helping the well-being of residents. “The options we give people really affect their ability to access things that can improve the quality of their lives," Francie Stefan, Santa Monica mobility manager, said to the RWJF. Housing. Santa Monica started improving resident's ability to access to affordable housing decades ago. Santa Monica requires developers to set aside a percentage of newly constructed units for affordable ...
From age 2 to 5, nearly 1 in 7 Latino boys are obese; by middle school, these rates go up to 22%. These facts and more about the overall health and education of young Latino males are discussed in a new report from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families. The status is particularly important as Latino children currently make up nearly 25% of the all children in the United States and by 2050 are projected to be nearly 30%. With nearly half of all children male, how Latino boys and young men fare has a great impact overall on the country’s social and economic well-being. In order to reduce health disparities, it is critical to address inequities in programs, practices, and policies. Join our site, connect with others, and get involved. Other ...
In the rural Columbia Gorge region of Oregon and Washington, collaboration has truly been the key to elevating the culture of health of everyone in the area. This vast area is larger than the state of Connecticut, however only 75,000 people live in this extreme environment. While many high-tech companies have moved into new the riverfront properties in Washington (11.74% Latino population) and Oregon (12.15% Latino population), many in remote areas live in poverty and the nearest medical care is over an hour’s drive away. Orchards in the region produce bounties of pears, apples, and cherries and yet 1 in 5 people are food insecure on a regular basis. To bridge these disparities, the people of the Columbia Gorge region have turned an “ordinary requirement” into an extraordinary ...
