Tagged With "Creating Healthier Communities"

Great article from NPR last year ( August 1, 2017 ) about Rochester, NY, food bank Foodlink's partnership with their local school district to provide locally grown slice apples for school lunches. by ANYA SACHAROW Wayne County, New York, is the biggest producer of apples in the Empire State. Yet, in 2013 public school children in the county were being served apples from Washington on their lunch trays. At the end of the lunch period, the lovely, whole Washington apples ended up mostly...

The new study adds to a growing body of research that supports the connection between diet and mental health. "We have a highly consistent and extensive evidence base from around the globe linking healthier diets to reduced depression risk," says Felice Jacka , a professor of nutritional and epidemiological psychiatry at Deakin University's Food & Mood Centre in Australia. ...

Abstract Background: Traditional research primarily details child obesity from a risk perspective. Risk factors are disproportionately higher in children raised in poverty, thus negatively influencing the weight status of low-income children. Borrowing from the field of family studies, the concept of family resiliency might provide a unique perspective for discussions regarding childhood obesity, by helping to identify mediating or moderating protective mechanisms that are present within the...

Haile Thomas—activist, health coach, vegan chef, public speaker, and CEO of HAPPY—is on a mission to help young people eat healthier. Haile Thomas is not your typical Gen Z teenager. The 18-year-old activist, health coach, vegan chef, and public speaker became the CEO of her nonprofit organization, Healthy Active Positive Purposeful Youth (HAPPY), when she was just 12 years old, inspired by witnessing her father fight off Type 2 diabetes with healthy eating and exercise. Since then, HAPPY...

A nutritionist of Trinidadian heritage writes of the harm done to people by failing to include a deep understanding of cultural diversity in nutrition and dietetics training: "We were often being taught to perpetuate idea that Eurocentric eating patterns were the only paths to healthy eating, that healthy eating means one thing and one thing only. But teaching someone healthier eating isn’t about making swaps here and there to fit a patient’s culture into a Eurocentric diet. It should be...

A new study from Tufts University finds "prescriptions" for healthy foods could save more than $100 billion in healthcare costs and prevent millions of cases of chronic diseases , which account for roughly 86 percent of annual healthcare costs in the United States. The study followed adults between the ages of 35-80 who were enrolled in Medicare and/or Medicaid. It placed participants into two groups : one in which Medicare/Medicaid covered the cost of 30% of fruits and vegetables, the other...

The program officer will design, manage, and monitor strategies and initiatives that focus on promoting policies that improve health outcomes for children and families and make healthier school environments the norm. We are particularly interested in finding candidates with experience in policy, education, and/or child and youth development. ( An editorial note from Gail - AND wouldn't it be great for the PO to be expert in the intersection of ACEs with child & youth development?) To...

The Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District agreed to move forward on a revision to its food and nutrition program at a June 14 board meeting, allocating money to improve Malibu HS and Samohi kitchens as well as offering more food and food purchasing options for students. To increase participation and revenue, the program proposed many options: freshly preparing meals at revamped Samohi and Malibu High School kitchens (an estimated $700k cost to replace kitchen equipment) to be...

Fruits and vegetables and everything you need can be bought at the supermarket nowadays. Due to this convenience, kids hardly know where their food comes from, much less how to grow it. By teaching them how to grow their own vegetables, their interest in healthy food is sparked. It’s fun, they learn a lot and spend time in nature. Every week the kids from this middle school in the Netherlands go to the vegetable garden with their teacher and a volunteer parent. At the vegetable garden they...

I was so interested in this subject that i felt compelled to respond. sorry for its length...A few years ago i managed a family service in a most disadvantaged community in Kent. The families that i supported came from an array of chaotic backgrounds and traumatic experiences that initially our community service mirrored that of a war zone. The rates of families on CP and CHIN were alarming. i spent most of my days stopping fights breaking out, and arguments NOT with children, but their...

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected diverse communities due largely in part to social factors such as inadequate access to housing, income, dietary options, education and employment — all of which have been shown to affect people's physical health. Recognizing that inequity, Harlem-based chef JJ Johnson sought out to help his community maximize its health during the pandemic — one grain at a time. Johnson manages FIELDTRIP , a health-focused restaurant that strives to bring...

From a young age, individuals learn about the world through observation, discovery, and interaction with their surroundings. If you have ever taken a walk through a park with a child, you may have noticed a change in their behavior. Spending time in nature benefits the health of both our minds and our bodies . A home, community, or school-garden provides the perfect setting to explore the wonders of nature. With spring just around the corner, there is no better time to start planning a...

Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Author: Allison Aubrey's article, please click here. The data are stark: the typical American diet is shortening the lives of many Americans. Diet-related deaths outrank deaths from smoking, and about half of U.S. deaths from heart disease – nearly 900 deaths a day – are linked to poor diet. The pandemic highlighted the problem, with much worse outcomes for people with obesity and other diet-related diseases. "We're really in a nutrition crisis...

PACEs Connection is excited to kick off our 2023 Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Annual Accelerator Program.

Roughly 60 percent of the calories in the average American diet come from highly processed foods. We’ve known for decades that eating such packaged products — like some breakfast cereals, snack bars, frozen meals and virtually all packaged sweets, among many other things — is linked to unwelcome health outcomes, like an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and even cancer. But more recent studies point to another major downside to these often delicious, always convenient foods: They appear to...

How do you improve your life? Many of us assume that flourishing in the face of adversity requires a certain kind of mindset . Believing in your power, staying focused on future goals, being proactive, and leveraging social relationships are four outlooks that can help, many of us suspect, in overcoming life’s obstacles. Driven by the belief that people can change their lives by thinking differently, public organizations in the UK and the US have made a deliberate effort over the past decade...

Christina Bethell, Ph.D, MBA, MPH, founder of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), principal author of the groundbreaking study on positive childhood experiences, and creator of the free Well Visit Planner, among other innovations. Two internationally-respected leaders and innovators in complementary aspects of early relational health and childhood and maternal health equity recently launched a partnership they believe will benefit everyone from newborn babies and...

Healthcare is a complex business, with understanding trauma-informed care and embedding it into the system being even more complex, but this manuscript offers deep insights into what to consider and how to move forward to create healthier futures and outcomes for all. Frontiers | Negative effects of adverse childhood experiences and absence of positive childhood experiences on healthcare employees: survey findings built on 10 years of trauma-informed development

Please join top researchers and leaders in the movement to create Neuro Nurturing Ecosystems in support of maternal, infant, family and community health TODAY, March 14th, for an information-packed webinar co-sponsored, in part, by PACEs Connection and its fiscal sponsor, the National Prevention Science Coalition. REGISTER now to attend this free webinar, the second in a series that has received scores of five-star reviews. National leaders in early relational health, health equity, and more...