The taste of food impacts our eating habits and, in turn, our health from a very young age, even from the womb. On Friday, February 26th, Dr. Julie La Barba, a pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio and Medical Director of Culinary Health Education for Families (CHEF), presented to and discussed with pediatricians, medical students, and other healthcare professionals in San Antonio how taste and food preferences are formed and how these preferences can impact a child’s diet. Dr. La Barba is committed to building a healthier culture and showing how food and medicine can work together. The new CHEF program, under Christus Santa Rosa Health Care, targets practitioners and teaches them the importance of healthy eating and how taste applies to medicine and ...
Last year, researcher Brian Elbel supported a proposal for healthier kids meals, after finding that 98% of receipts from kids meal purchases did not meet nutritional criteria outlined in legislation. Now, pushing towards legislation that would regulate foods that come in kids meals that offer a toy, health committee officials discussed with legislators for over three hours on how to approach the child hood obesity issue within the city. Ben Kallos supported the "Happy Meal" bill that would require nutritional rules to be set on any kids meals that offer or target children with toys. Referring back to a 2014 study from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Kallos supported his belief that the bill would assist the obesity problem, as more than one-in-five New York City ...
Very popular amongst iPhone game players is the infamous Angry Birds games. Unfortunately, they have been placed across candy boxes throughout stores to promote high-sugar gummies. The first two ingredients in these "fruit" gummies are sugar and corn syrup. Recent studies show that Latino kids and youth of color are marketed junk food, candy and soda's at higher rates than white children. Marketers know what is popular and are not afraid to use fun cartoon characters to market unhealthy junk food and soda to kids. What is popular is what sells, and, unfortunately, many kids do not see the health risks involved eating these foods as some are even marketed with healthy words, like fat-free. (see picture to the right) High sugar sweets and sodas are more likely to increase the ...
New York City (28.6% Latino) has required all restaurants in the city to warn consumers about high-sodium foods with a new salt shaker icon. This new label will advise consumers which menu items contain 2,300 milligrams (mg) or more of sodium. The American Heart Association (AHA) has recommended that adults consume less than 2,300 mg of sodium a day. Recent revelations of new food items, like the basic sandwich show just how easy sodium can add up in foods most people consider healthy. The AHA warns consumers as they state that Americans consume more than 3,400mg of sodium daily, more than double of what is recommended. The new rule for the NYC restaurants applies not just for restaurants within the city but also any restaurant like a chain that may have 15 or more locations ...
California is full of food, unfortunately, many of the low-income areas are full of unhealthy options like fast food or foods highly processed and high in sodium or fats. The state has four million people with inadequate access to healthy and affordable fresh foods, but the future looks good. This October marked a change for low-income Californian's as a new bill was introduced to help allow low-income shoppers match their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits dollar for dollar at local farmer's markets. The California Nutrition Incentives Act (AB1231), could create the nutrition matching incentive program within the state's Office of Farm to Fork, where individual consumers, and school districts directly connect with California's farmers, ranchers, and resources ...
Popular chef Daniel Patterson believes his new fast-food chain, loco'l, set to open in Tenderloin, Calif. in 2015, will help address the issue of food deserts in urban areas. The low-cost menu in his new chain will cater to low-income households where items will range from two to six dollars and compete with large chains, like McDonalds and Taco Bell's dollar menus. Items on the menu will include healthier made Burgers will be considered healthier as they will be partially made with tofu and grain. Veggie bowls, falafel, tacos, salads and rice bowls will all be part of the menu with fresh seasonal ingredients. Patterson decided to open his first restaurant in Tenderloin, where his charity, The Cooking Project is located. The Cooking Project is a non-profit, community-based ...
Fast food is advertised on Television with fun characters from popular TV shows and movies. These characters are promoted through toys in hopes to attract kids into wanting the latest happy meal toy. Unfortunately, fast food is usually not the healthy choice, and a recent study points out that families with more TVs at home and those with a TV in the child's bedroom visit fast food restaurants more often than other families. The study reported in The Journal of Pediatrics also revealed that children who are more likely to watch more TV at home, watching shows like Nickelodeon, Nicktoons, Cartoon Network and Disney, were reported visiting McDonald’s or Burger King at least once per month. Latino kids are more likely to be targeted for unhealthy food ads, and sugary sweet drinks. In ...
Studies have shown that sugar is bad for us, but how can it change our health? Research is still being done on how sugar is affecting the health of adults and children, although it is clear that most studies clearly show links of sugar to failing health. Recent studies have revealed how sugar can worsen cardiometabolic risk factors, and how sugary beverages are linked to heart failure. New research from the University of California in San Francisco and Touro University revealed that cutting sugar out of kid's diets for at least 10 days created an immediate transformation in their health. Within the studies participants, were 27 obese Latino children. Dramatic levels were reported of reduction in diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, and bad cholesterol. Also, glucose ...
Latino kids saw substantially more ads for unhealthy snack foods in the past five years, according to the new Snack FACTS study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. On Spanish-language TV, 89% of snack food ads pushed unhealthy food in 2014, up from 39% in 2010. Spending to advertise healthier yogurts declined by 93%, while cookies, fruit snacks, and snack bars increased 30% and chips and crackers 551%. Latino kids also were more likely to visit the most popular snack food company websites. “Food companies must stop marketing practices that disproportionately target unhealthy snack foods to young people of color,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America!, a Latino childhood obesity prevention network funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ...
