Fight API Obesity

CDC and NIH Funding Opportunities

fightapiobesity — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:00:27 +0000

Community-Based Partnerships for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Control: Research to Inform Policy (R03)
(PA-09-140)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to enhance childhood obesity research by fostering the formation of local, state, or regional teams consisting of researchers, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders (e.g., community representatives, public health practitioners or officials, educators) in order to identify research questions and hypotheses, design and implement the relevant research, and translate the research into evidence relevant to potential policy efforts in this area. The R03 grant mechanism supports different types of projects including pilot and feasibility studies; secondary analysis of existing data; small, self-contained research projects; development of research methodology; and development of new research technology. The R03 is intended to support small research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources. This FOA will utilize the NIH Small Research Grant (R03) award mechanism and runs in parallel with an FOA of identical scientific scope, PA-09-141, that encourages applications under the NIH Exploratory/Developmental Grant (R21).
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 16, June 16, Oct. 16
Expires: May 8, 2012
Community-Based Partnerships for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Control: Research to Inform Policy (R21)
(PA-09-141)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to enhance childhood obesity research by fostering the formation of local, state, or regional teams consisting of researchers, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders (e.g., community representatives, public health practitioners or officials, educators) in order to identify research questions and hypotheses, design and implement the relevant research, and translate the research into evidence relevant to potential policy efforts in this area. This FOA will use the NIH Exploratory/Developmental (R21) grant mechanism and runs in parallel with a FOA of identical scientific scope, PA-09-140, that encourages applications under the NIH Small Research Grant (R03) award mechanism.
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 16, June 16, Oct. 16
Expires: May 8, 2012
Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures (R01)
(PA-10-027)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages Research Project Grant (R01) applications that propose to: (1) conduct evaluation research on obesity-related “natural experiments” (defined here as community and other population-level public policy interventions that may affect diet and physical activity behavior), and/or (2) develop and/or validate relevant community-level measures (instruments and methodologies to assess the food and physical activity environments at the community level). The overarching goal of this FOA is to inform public policy and research relevant to (1) diet and physical activity behavior, and (2) weight and health outcomes of Americans. This FOA will utilize the research project (R01) grant mechanism, and runs in parallel with two other FOAs of identical scientific scope, PA-10-028 and PA-10-029 that encourage applications under the NIH Exploratory/Developmental (R21) and NIH Small Research (R03) grant mechanisms.
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 5, June 5, Oct. 5
Expires: Jan. 8, 2013
Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures (R21)
(PA-10-028)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages Exploratory/Developmental Grant (R21) applications that propose to: (1) conduct evaluation research on obesity-related “natural experiments” (defined here as community and other population-level public policy interventions that may affect diet and physical activity behavior), and/or (2) develop and/or validate relevant community-level measures (instruments and methodologies to assess the food and physical activity environments at the community level). The overarching goal of this FOA is to inform public policy and research relevant to (1) diet and physical activity behavior, and (2) weight and health outcomes of Americans. The R21 grant mechanism is intended to encourage exploratory/developmental research by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of project development. This FOA will utilize the exploratory/developmental (R21) grant mechanism, and runs in parallel with two other FOAs of identical scientific scope, PA-10-027 and PA-10-029 that encourage applications under the NIH research project (R01) and NIH Small Grant (R03) grant mechanisms.
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 16, June 16, Oct. 16
Expires: Jan. 8, 2013
Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures (R03)
(PA-10-029)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages Small Research Grant (R03) applications that propose to: (1) conduct evaluation research on obesity-related “natural experiments” (defined here as community and other population-level public policy interventions that may affect diet and physical activity behavior), and/or (2) develop and/or validate relevant community-level measures (instruments and methodologies to assess the food and physical activity environments at the community level). The overarching goal of this FOA is to inform public policy relevant to diet and physical activity behavior, and weight and health outcomes of Americans. The R03 grant mechanism supports different types of projects including pilot and feasibility studies; secondary analysis of existing data; small, self-contained research projects; development of research methodology; and development of new research technology. The R03 is intended to support small research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources. This FOA will utilize the Small Research Grant (R03) mechanism, and runs in parallel with two other FOAs of identical scientific scope, PA-10-027 and PA-10-028 that encourage applications under the NIH Research Project (R01) and NIH Exploratory/Developmental (R21) grant mechanisms.
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 16, June 16, Oct. 16
Expires: Jan. 8, 2013
School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies, Obesogenic Behaviors and Weight Outcomes (R01)
(PA-10-052)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Grant applications are encouraged that propose to: (1) Foster multidisciplinary research that will evaluate how policies (federal, state and school district levels) can influence school physical activity and nutrition environments, youths’ obesogenic behaviors (e.g., nutrition and physical activity behaviors), and weight outcomes; (2) Understand how schools are implementing these policies and examine multi-level influences on adoption and implementation at various levels (e.g. federal, state, school district, and school); and (3) understand the synergistic or counteractive effect of school nutrition and physical activity polices on the home and community environment and body weight.

The funding opportunities described here are related, but separate to other recently announced program announcements: Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures (R01: PA-10-027; R21: PA-10-028; R03: PA-10-029). As a general guide, if the focus of a grant proposal is on evaluation research of obesity-related policies outside the school environment, and/or development/validation of community-level measures, the Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures funding opportunities may be the most appropriate. If a grant proposal focuses on children in the context of home/family, schools and/or macro policy environments, the School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies, Obesogenic Behaviors and Weight Outcomes may be the most appropriate funding opportunity to which researchers should apply.
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 5, June 5, Oct. 5
Expires: Jan. 8, 2013
School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies, Obesogenic Behaviors and Weight Outcomes (R21)
(PA-10-053)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Grant applications are encouraged that propose to: (1) Foster multidisciplinary research that will evaluate how policies (federal, state and school district levels) can influence school physical activity and nutrition environments, youths’ obesogenic behaviors (e.g., nutrition and physical activity behaviors), and weight outcomes; (2) Understand how schools are implementing these policies and examine multi-level influences on adoption and implementation at various levels (e.g. federal, state, school district, and school); and (3) understand the synergistic or counteractive effect of school nutrition and physical activity polices on the home and community environment and body weight.

The funding opportunities described here are related, but separate to other recently announced program announcements: Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures (R01: PA-10-027; R21: PA-10-028; R03: PA-10-029). As a general guide, if the focus of a grant proposal is on evaluation research of obesity-related policies outside the school environment, and/or development/validation of community-level measures, the Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures funding opportunities may be the most appropriate. If a grant proposal focuses on children in the context of home/family, schools and/or macro policy environments, the School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies, Obesogenic Behaviors and Weight Outcomes may be the most appropriate funding opportunity to which researchers should apply.
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 16, June 16, Oct. 16
Expires: Jan. 8, 2013
School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies, Obesogenic Behaviors and Weight Outcomes (R03)
(PA-10-054)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Grant applications are encouraged that propose to: (1) Foster multidisciplinary research that will evaluate how policies (federal, state and school district levels) can influence school physical activity and nutrition environments, youths’ obesogenic behaviors (e.g., nutrition and physical activity behaviors), and weight outcomes; (2) Understand how schools are implementing these policies and examine multi-level influences on adoption and implementation at various levels (e.g. federal, state, school district, and school); and (3) understand the synergistic or counteractive effect of school nutrition and physical activity polices on the home and community environment and body weight.

The funding opportunities described here are related, but separate to other recently announced program announcements: Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures (R01: PA-10-027; R21: PA-10-028; R03: PA-10-029). As a general guide, if the focus of a grant proposal is on evaluation research of obesity-related policies outside the school environment, and/or development/validation of community-level measures, the Obesity Policy Research: Evaluation and Measures funding opportunities may be the most appropriate. If a grant proposal focuses on children in the context of home/family, schools and/or macro policy environments, the School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies, Obesogenic Behaviors and Weight Outcomes may be the most appropriate funding opportunity to which researchers should apply.
Cycle Due Dates (new submission): Feb. 16, June 16, Oct. 16
Expires: Jan. 8, 2013

Tufts University / Child Obesity 180: Innovation Competition

fightapiobesity — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:26:27 +0000

Tufts University / Child Obesity 180

Innovation Competition
Active Schools Acceleration Project (ASAP)
Tufts University / Child Obesity 180

The Innovation Competition from ASAP is a nationwide competition designed to identify and reward innovative and impactful physical activity programs and technologies with excellent promise to motivate quality physical activity at school and beyond. This opportunity is for people with a passion to make a difference and get our nation’s students active and healthy. This includes but is not limited to schools, school districts, teachers, and technology developers. There are two competition categories:
1. School programs: Innovative in-school physical activity programs
2. Technology innovation: Technology applications that motivate and support daily physical activity at school and beyond
Deadline: April 2, 2012

Breastfed babies have better chance of avoiding obesity

fightapiobesity — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:00:36 +0000

Let’s not forget that those who don’t breastfeed, switch to formula…which is known to have different chemicals like BPA and other phthalates in the lining of the containers!

—

EXERCISE and a healthy diet are known to prevent childhood obesity, but a study has found breastfeeding may also help prevent infants from becoming overweight adolescents.

The Flinders University study found that infants breastfed for six months or more were 36 per cent less likely to be overweight and 49 per cent less likely to be obese at 16, compared with those who were not breastfed.

The short-term benefits of breastfeeding in preventing certain illnesses are well known but Jane Scott, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at the Adelaide university, said the research added to evidence that the benefits of breastfeeding extended to later life.

”There’s such a lot of studies that have found this association, but this was the first large, nationally representative study carried out in Australia,” she said.

Of the 2066 children and adolescents aged between nine and 16 who were studied, 90 per cent were breastfed at birth.

While 45 per cent of them were still breastfed at six months, only 10 per cent of those were fed on breast milk exclusively.

”Even once we accounted for factors known to influence weight – including the mother’s age, ethnicity and level of education, and the child’s energy intake, exercise habits and sleep time – breastfeeding still appears to reduce the risk of becoming overweight,” Professor Scott said.

A likely reason for that, she said, was because breastfeeding was infant-led while bottle-feeding was mother-led.

”What happens with breastfeeding is if the infant isn’t hungry, they won’t eat. With formula, mothers can get preoccupied with making their child finish the bottle. Initially the child will stop when satisfied, but Mum keeps putting the bottle back in the baby’s mouth.

”They are teaching their children to override their innate ability to stop when full.”

At 10 months old, Zoya is still being breastfed by her mother, Gunjan Chamania, who said she chose to breastfeed because of the health benefits.

”It’s hard at the beginning; it’s a learning experience both for the baby and the mum, so I can’t say it’s very easy,” Mrs Chamania, of Macquarie Park, said.

”But I will definitely breastfeed for as long as Zoya wants, because it is obviously good for her.”

However, Professor Scott said breastfeeding for a period of at least six months was not a guarantee against weight gain.

”It reduces the risk, but doesn’t guarantee prevention,” she said.

”There are other lifestyle practices that children still need, like adequate physical activity, eight hours or more of sleep, less than two hours of screen time per day and a diet low in sugar and fat, to help prevent them from becoming overweight.”

http://www.moreechampion.com.au/news/national/national/general/breastfed-babies-have-better-chance-of-avoiding-obesity/2452489.aspx?storypage=0

with Elizabeth Pratt

Home- and Family-Based Approaches for the Prevention or Management of Overweight or Obesity in Early Childhood (R21)

fightapiobesity — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:24:34 +0000

Home- and Family-Based Approaches for the Prevention or Management of Overweight or Obesity in Early Childhood (R21)
(PA-10-128)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
Office of Disease Prevention (ODP)

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites exploratory pilot/feasibility study and small clinical trial (R21) applications from institutions/organizations that propose to test novel home- or family-based interventions for the prevention or management of overweight in infancy and early childhood. Tested interventions can use behavioral (including dietary and physical activity), environmental, or other relevant approaches. Applications should focus on infants and young children (up to age 6) and emphasize the role of home environment and the influence of family/extended family members and parents (including guardians/substantial care-providers) within the child’s home environment. The direct goal of this initiative is to fund research that will advance knowledge for innovative approaches to the prevention or management of overweight in children younger than 6 years of age, with potential for future research clinical trial applications either in the home or linked to a community setting. Research should consider the role of families in the initiation, support, and reinforcement of fundamental food and beverage consumption, physical activity practices and sedentary behaviors. In addition, it is of interest to elucidate various underlying behavioral determinants that are crucial to initiate or sustain changes in behaviors that impact energy balance. Research designs may include linkages with other settings (e.g., daycare, pre-school, or other community venues) or other care providers (e.g., health-care providers or teachers) but must include infants or children younger than age 6 as the primary study participant along with parents, and/or other family members residing with the child. The overarching goal is to identify interventions that influence parent and child behaviors that contribute to inappropriate weight gain, and thereby improve subsequent health status in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood for which overweight is a known risk factor. This FOA will use the NIH Exploratory/Developmental (R21) grant mechanism and runs in parallel with a FOA of identical scientific scope, PA-10-127, that encourages applications under the R01 mechanism.
Cycle Due Dates (new su

RAPID RESPONSE PILOT STUDIES Request for Applications (RFA)

fightapiobesity — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:23:53 +0000

Rapid Response Pilot Studies RFA
The Johns Hopkins Global Center for Childhood Obesity (JHGCCO)

The JHGCCO conducts research, training and outreach in systems science approaches to advance understanding of the causes of childhood obesity world-wide, and find effective interventions to combat epidemic childhood obesity and non-communicable diseases. Systems science approaches are needed to understand how influences on eating behavior, physical activity, and body weight across the spectrum from “cell to society” interact to cause or perpetuate increasing rates of childhood obesity. Johns Hopkins has created this new center with funding from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center grant (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HD-10-001.html) plus additional institutional resources. The JHGCCO is implementing four complementary research projects that address etiologic and intervention questions pertinent to its mission, as well as mechanisms to support relevant research, training, and pilot studies. The global focus will foster cross learning across diverse communities and settings. One of the Center’s key goals is to accelerate the identification of novel, systems-oriented environmental change and policy approaches to address the childhood obesity epidemic. This RFA, therefore, solicits applications for pilot studies through a Rapid Response funding mechanism that will only support opportune pilot and feasibility projects that might not be fundable via the regular NIH review cycles. This RFA provides funds for researchers to collect time-sensitive data for impending environmental or policy changes. Pilot projects should use a systems science framework, but need not use system science methods. The JHGCCO seeks to jumpstart systems-oriented childhood obesity research in a rapidly-changing physical or policy environment by supporting opportune pilot and feasibility projects with timelines that would not allow funding through the regular NIH review cycles. Support from this RFA will enable researchers to more successfully compete for additional funding at the NIH or elsewhere to collect follow-up data and complete the evaluation of policy and/or environmental changes. Studies funded through this program will contribute to assessment of the effects or potential effects of existing or impending policy, system, and/or environmental changes— (e.g., schools, homes, food and dining outlets, health care settings, community-based organizations)—on children’s diet, physical activity, energy balance and weight status.
Expires: March 30, 2012

Regulation To Allow Schools To Track Students’ BMI

fightapiobesity — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:00:37 +0000

While I’m sure this effort will help some, I feel like just taking the BMI of the children each year is not enough. You need to develop programming that encourages healthy food and exercise in your school. Not only that, how about the parents? How will they be involved, and how will they influence their child’s BMI. Don’t even get me started about the environmental conditions that might exist!

—

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky State Board of Education recently approved a proposal that would require schools to calculate and record a child’s body mass index.The approval comes after research into the growing problem of childhood obesity. Kentucky ranked third in the nation in the number of children ages 10 to 17 considered obese, according to a 2010 study by Trust for America’s Health.Senator Denise Harper Angel, D-Louisville, sponsored the legislation (Senate Bill 39) focusing on reducing childhood obesity and improving the health of Kentucky’s youth through BMI screenings. “I am very pleased to see the state school board taking the initiative with BMI screenings,” Harper Angel said. “We need to address the growing epidemic of childhood obesity now to get our children on a better health path.”The new regulation would go into effect in the 2012-2013 school year. The screenings would be made during a student’s annual exam in preschool through fifth grade and at least once in middle and high school.

Obesity linked to fibromyalgia: Study

fightapiobesity — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:00:54 +0000

Patients suffering from fibromyalgia generally face a range of issues like mood disorders, tiredness, chronic pain, and sleep disturbances. On this front, investigators at Mayo Clinic claim that fibromyalgia symptoms could be due to the individual’s weight.

Nearly 888 fibromyalgia patients were inspected in the study. While half of them were obese, approximately one-fourth of the subjects were struck by severe obesity. The participants were surveyed regarding their symptoms and daily functions.

Study author Terry Oh, M.D., of Mayo Clinic’s Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, commented, “We see an association between body mass index with symptom severity and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia. This was the first study to look at distinct groups of obese patients and determine how weight correlates with levels of symptoms and quality of life.”

The results showed that the intensity of symptoms apparently elevated with increase in obesity rates. Cumulatively, volunteers with a higher BMI reported more severe symptoms related to fibromyalgia along with a lower quality of routine life. As compared to non-obese individuals, those who were severely obese seemingly manifested higher pain scores.

Though a causal relationship between obesity and fibromyalgia did not seem to surface out, those suffering from fibromyalgia may be obese due to physical inactivity and pain cycles encountered in the process. Moreover, excessive body mass and chronic pain could be associated with a poor way of life and more susceptibility to disability.

Considering that BMI has been cited as an independent risk variable for fibromyalgia, the team urged weight management programs to be initiated for the treatment of the condition. The report is published in the journal, Arthritis Care & Research.

http://www.healthjockey.com/2012/02/13/obesity-linked-to-fibromyalgia-study/#

Games and interactive media are powerful tools for health promotion and childhood obesity prevention

fightapiobesity — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:00:13 +0000

I’m still pushing for a Snake game where the snake needs to learn portion control.

—

New Rochelle, NY — Children are naturally drawn toward gaming and other types of technology, creating an ideal opportunity to design interactive media tools to encourage physical activity and promote healthy eating habits, according to an article in a special issue of the journal Childhood Obesity celebrating the second anniversary of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative. The issue includes a special Foreword by Mrs. Obama and is available free online at http://www.liebertpub.com/chi.

“Let’s Get Technical! Gaming and Technology for Weight Control and Health Promotion in Children,” an article by Tom Baranowski, PhD and Leslie Frankel, PhD, USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, describes the ongoing research effort to identify and develop the most effective approaches for using gaming and interactive media to deliver health promotion messages to children of all ages.

This special Let’s Move! issue has a wide range of contributions from leaders in the fight against childhood obesity including Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, NFL quarterback Drew Brees, Stephen Daniels, MD, PhD, Sandra Hassink, MD, Margo Wootan, DSc, and Editor-in-Chief David Katz, MD, MPH.

Childhood Obesity is a bimonthly journal, published in print and online, and the journal of record for all aspects of communication on the broad spectrum of issues and strategies related to weight management and obesity prevention in children and adolescents.

The issue covers a broad range of topics including creating environments that support routine physical activity and a healthy lifestyle, after-school obesity prevention programs, nutrition standards for school meals, faith-based advocacy efforts to end childhood obesity, gaming and technology for weight control, parent training programs for 2-4 year old Latino children, the role of sleep in childhood obesity, a roundtable discussion about what we don’t know about childhood obesity, industry efforts to help children make healthy food choices, and success stories from the Let’s Move! initiative.

“We know that ‘screen time’ is a contributor to childhood obesity. But we also know it’s not going away. Thought leaders like Dr. Baranowski are showing how to convert parts of the problem into parts of the solution,” says David L. Katz, MD, MPH, Editor-in-Chief of Childhood Obesity and Director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center. “We are honored to feature such pragmatic expertise on the pages of the Journal.”

Source: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

The API Policy Summit

fightapiobesity — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:00:03 +0000

Asian Pacific Islanders California Action Network Presents:

California Asian Pacific Islander Policy Summit 2012

iAdvocate

April 30 – May 1, 2012 Sacramento, California

Registration & Scholarship Process

It is our pleasure to invite you to the 9th Annual California Asian & Pacific Islander (API) Policy Summit which will be held at the Sacramento Convention Center on April 30 to May 1, 2012.

This year, our theme of iAdvocate recognizes the empowered individuals who make up over 5.5 million Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) in California. Comprising 15% of California’s population, the AANHPI community must exercise its political strength and community voice. As a result, iAdvocate also speaks to how we can apply technology to our community organizing and advocacy. As with previous years, the API Policy Summit serves as a vehicle for the AANHPI community to refine its advocacy efforts in order to develop more sophisticated strategies to advance our community’s agenda on every level of government.

The Summit will feature skills building workshops that incorporate real community problems to help participants grow into stronger advocates, organizers, and leaders. The summit will bring focus to participants by organizing workshops into five policy tracks that will explore policy issues on the local, state, and federal levels. We bring back traditional policy tracks including civil rights, education, and health & human services. In addition, we are introducing two new policy tracks to parallel the wider range of issues our community is advancing – environmental justice and labor & economic justice. Registering for the API Policy Summit now includes the API Policy Summit Gala Dinner, where we will celebrate community leaders and organizations. During day two of the API Policy Summit, participants immediately jump in the role of advocate by participating in legislative visits to advocate for their legislative, policy, and budget issues with legislative offices. More information about the API Policy Summit program can be found on our website atwww.apisummit.org.

The API Policy Summit marks a significant opportunity for California AANHPI community members and organizations to empower themselves and their community at the California State Capitol.

Participants can register on-line here: http://apisummit2012.eventbrite.com

For participants who have financial difficulty, scholarships are available by applying on-line here: http://goo.gl/kYk7E.

For more information regarding program content, please contact

Andrew T. Medina at (916) 319-3686 or andrew.medina@asm.ca.gov.

For more information regarding payment and registration, please contact Wendy Chiu at(213)553-1810 or wchiu@ssgmain.org.

National Legislation Updates On Safe Routes to School

fightapiobesity — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:00:45 +0000

From our friends at APPEAL:

For those of you involved in work around the built environment, and especially tracking national policies that affect community efforts to promote active living, you may know that the reauthorization of the federal transportation law presents an opportunity to promote, enforce, and expand health, safety, and equity in transportation policy.

On Thursday, February 2, 2012 the House Transportation Committee took up consideration of the transportation title of the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act. The bill proposes to repeal the Safe Routes to School program, and eliminates funding for Transportation Enhancements. As APPEAL’s work is to educate our network members on all levels of policy issues related to social justice, you may be interested in this article that outlines the auto industry agenda http://nationofchange.org/creeps-and-weirdos-auto-industry-agenda-keeping-you-four-wheels-1328193397. To learn about current national conversations on this issue, visit the Safe Routes to School National Partnership site at: http://www.saferoutespartnership.org/national

You can also learn more about Safe Routes to School by visiting the Safe Routes to School National Partnership: http://www.saferoutespartnership.org/.

REACH National Organizations that Serve Minority Communities (MNOs) Webinar Series

fightapiobesity — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:00:58 +0000

The Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health program (REACH) is the cornerstone of CDC’s efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities in the United States. REACH partners use community-based, participatory approaches to identify, develop, and disseminate effective strategies for addressing health disparities across a wide range of health priority areas. This webinar series is to showcase evidence and practice-based practices to address health disparities, develop community partnerships and disseminate proven strategies for eliminating health disparities.

REACH MNO Webinar Series Registration Link: http://sophe.sophe.org/event_items.asp

Joe Miller Shows You What the Hell to Do With Your CSA

fightapiobesity — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:00:56 +0000

Love our local bounty and farmers markets as we do, not everyone around here is a budding Paul Shoemaker or Ray Garcia once they get back to the kitchen. When it comes to picking up a CSA box, no doubt a few hearts race to haphazardly improvise a meal along the same lines one uses to prepare dinner when cleaning out the fridge. Joe’s and Bar Pintxo chef and owner Joe Miller is coming to the rescue on February 25th, as the chef is appearing at Surfas that Saturday from 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Miller plans to take one weekly CSA supply and demonstrate a full meal based on its contents, as the third part of the restaurant supply store’s “A Sustainable Kitchen” series. Even if you’re fairly confident using your organic beets and cauliflower, there’s little to lose here, as the event is totally free, with limited seating offered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

February 25th, 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. at Surfas, 8777 Washington Blvd. Culver City.

BPA’s Obesity And Diabetes Link Strengthened By New Study

fightapiobesity — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:00:50 +0000

The modern lifestyle of super-sized french fries and couch potatoes often takes the blame for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes in the U.S. — perhaps rightly so. But growing evidence suggests another factor in the dual epidemics: modern chemicals.

Exposure to even minuscule amounts of synthesized substances — used in everything from pesticides to water bottles — can scramble hormone signals, scientists say. This interference can trick fat cells into taking in more fat or mislead the pancreas into secreting excess insulin, a hormone that regulates the breakdown of fat and carbohydrates.

Among the most ubiquitous and scrutinized of these so-called endocrine disruptors is bisphenol A, better known as BPA. The chemical is a common ingredient in plastics and food-can linings.

“When you eat something with BPA, it’s like telling your organs that you are eating more than you are really eating,” says Angel Nadal, a BPA expert at the Miguel Hernandez University in Spain.

Nadal’s latest research, published last week in PLoS ONE, finds that the chemical triggers the release of almost double the insulin actually needed to break down food. High insulin levels can desensitize the body to the hormone over time, which in some people may then lead to weight gain and Type 2 diabetes.

To achieve this feat, BPA fools a receptor into thinking it is the natural hormone estrogen, an insulin regulator. Nadal’s team found that even the tiniest amounts of BPA — a quarter of a billionth of a gram — did the trick. The effect disappeared when the researchers stripped the specific receptors from the study mice, evidence that they had in fact pinpointed BPA’s chemical mechanism, which had previously eluded scientists.

In laboratory tests of human cells, the response was even more pronounced.

“That pretty much nails it,” Bruce Blumberg of the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the new study, told The Huffington Post. He notes that despite the prior associations made between BPA and metabolic problems, including obesity and diabetes, doubt had lingered because of a lack of understanding about how the phenomenon occurred. Long-term studies of children — tracking BPA exposures and health outcomes — remain ongoing around the world.

An estimated 90 percent of people in developed countries have BPA circulating in their blood at levels often higher than the threshold for causing hormone disruption used in Nadal’s study. This high incidence is due not only to exposures from leaching food packages but also BPA-infused cash register receipts, dental sealants and toilet paper.

“People are seeing effects of BPA down to 1000-fold below [Nadal's threshold],” adds Frederick vom Saal, another expert in endocrine disruptors at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “It takes so little of this chemical to cause harm.”

The chemical industry disagrees. “BPA is one of the most thoroughly tested chemicals used today and has a safety track record of 50 years,” says Kathryn Murray St. John, a spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying group for the plastics industry. She highlights recent regulatory rulings in favor of the safety of BPA.

Vom Saal, who also wasn’t involved in the Spanish study, explains why the “standard estimates of safety” may be invalid. Minute amounts of the chemical may be even more potent than larger quantities, he says, which can flood the receptors and essentially turn them off, stopping the flow of insulin. In other words, the dose does not make the poison — at least not in the ordinary sense. Yet the traditional dose-response assumption remains the basis for most regulatory tests that have deemed the chemical safe.

The consequences of the continued widespread use of BPA could be most dire for pregnant women and developing fetuses, who appear to be particularly sensitive.

“The fetus is not only exposed to BPA but also to higher levels of insulin from the mother, making the environment for the fetus even more disruptive,” says Nadal. “This is a very delicate period.”

Previous studies have suggested that the environmental chemicals in the womb can preprogram weight gain later in life. BPA, for example, may tell a growing fetus to develop more fat cells.

Nadal adds that BPA is just one of a larger cocktail of at least 20 endocrine disruptors commonly used in everyday items, including phthalates, nicotine, dioxin, arsenic and tributyltin. Further, obesity and diabetes aren’t the only risks posed by the chemicals. Studies also hint at links with cancer, infertility, heart disease and cognitive problems.

Overall, half of the developed world is now overweight and one in six is obese — about double the numbers of 30 years ago. Approximately 250 million people suffer from diabetes worldwide.

Sure, our lifestyle has changed over the decades in parallel with the increased use of BPA. Yet scientists have noticed the same fattening trend in newborns, lab rodents, pets and wildlife that live in close proximity to humans. Have babies or mice really changed how much they eat or exercise? Experts highlight this as further evidence that more than just caloric intake is driving the current epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

“The scary thing is, this is occurring in children. Thirty years ago, we called Type 2 diabetes ‘adult-onset,’” vom Saal says. That’s not the case anymore.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/bpa-chemical-hormone-obesity-diabetes_n_1276996.html

Weight loss can be contagious, study suggests

fightapiobesity — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:00:54 +0000

Hmmm.. you know, APIOPA is starting an organizational competition soon, to see which org can be the most active. If you’re interested, let me know at schan@ssgapiopa.org

—

Researchers from The Miriam Hospital’s Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University found that team members not only achieved similar weight loss outcomes, but participants who said their teammates played a large role in their weight loss actually lost the most weight.

“We know that obesity can be socially contagious, but now we know that social networks play a significant role in weight loss as well, particularly team-based weight loss competitions,” said lead author Tricia Leahey, Ph.D., of The Miriam Hospital and Alpert Medical School. “In our study, weight loss clearly clustered within teams, which suggests that teammates influenced each other, perhaps by providing accountability, setting expectations of weight loss, and providing encouragement and support.”

Obesity remains a common, serious and costly disease in the United States. About one-third of American adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and no state has met the nation’s Healthy People 2010 goal to lower obesity prevalence to 15 percent. Obesity and its associated health problems, including heart disease and diabetes, continue to have a significant economic impact on the U.S. health care system, costing the nation hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

To promote cost-effective weight loss initiatives, online team-based weight loss interventions are increasing in popularity as a way to encourage weight loss in large groups of people. The current study is the first to examine the effects of teammates and social influence on individual weight loss during one of these weight loss competitions.

The findings are based on the results of the 2009 Shape Up Rhode Island (SURI) campaign, a 12-week statewide online weight loss competition designed by study co-author Rajiv Kumar, M.D. Participants joined with a team and could compete against other teams in three divisions: weight loss, physical activity and pedometer steps. The weight loss competition included 3,330 overweight or obese individuals (BMI of 31.2 or greater), representing 987 teams averaging between 5 and 11 members each. The majority of these individuals enrolled in all three divisions.

Weight loss outcomes were clearly determined by which team an individual was on. Participants who lost clinically significant amounts of weight (at least 5 percent of their initial body weight) tended to be on the same teams, and being on a team with more teammates in the weight loss division was also associated with a greater weight loss. Individuals who reported higher levels of teammate social influence increased their odds of achieving a clinically significant weight loss by 20 percent. This effect was stronger than any other team characteristic, Leahey said.

“This is the first study to show that in these team-based campaigns, who’s on your team really matters,” she added. “Being surrounded by others with similar health goals all working to achieve the same thing may have really helped people with their weight loss efforts.”

However, Leahey noted that individual characteristics were also associated with weight outcomes. Obese individuals had a greater percentage of weight loss than overweight participants. Team captains also lost more weight than team members, possibly due to their increased motivation and engagement in the campaign. Leahey says that future weight loss team competitions may consider requiring team members to share the leadership role.

“We’re all influenced by the people around us, so if we can harness this positive peer pressure and these positive social influences, we can create a social environment to help encourage additional weight loss,” she said.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-weight-loss-contagious.html

APIOPA Wants YOU to Fight Climate Change

fightapiobesity — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:35:37 +0000

I attended a documentary screening of “Rising Waters”, which shows us how the Pacific Islands are already the victims of global warming (to the point where their islands will disappear completely due to rising water levels). After the screening, I was asked to go up and speak about what local community members can do about the fight against climate change. As strange as it may sound, the work APIOPA is pushing forward around community gardens and community supported agriculture (CSA) has everything to do with our fight against climate change.

If we want to impact globally, we need to create change locally. Have you ever been at the market and wondered where your produce comes from? It takes fossil fuels to power the exhaust-spewing trucks that deliver vegetables to your local market. Produce comes from around the state, country, and even world; imagine how much extra carbon emissions are being put in the air so you can have your blueberries from Maine.

When people think of the work that APIOPA does, the most common thought is that we do work on healthy living; access to healthy food, access to healthy environments to exercise in, etc. Yes, we do that, but in the larger scheme of things, we are encouraging communities to fight climate change. Here’s how:

Community Gardens

Community gardens are great for many reasons. Foremost, community members can get a better understanding of where their foods comes from, and how much effort it takes to upkeep. With how easily accessible food is today, it’s no surprise if community members don’t know where their produce comes from, and how long it takes to grow. Community members also get a chance to get outdoors and get some exercise when they are planting, watering, and weeding. APIOPA has worked with our partners Guam Communications Network and Tongan Community Service Center to take care of a few sowing beds at a local community garden. Our Pacific Islander brothers and sisters have found the plots to be a good first step in reconnecting with the land, and their own cultural roots!

While there are several different crops being grown on their plots, the most important thing we are growing is an idea. The idea is that you can grow your own food, locally and organically. You do not need to rely on whatever is at the markets, and you have the power to feed yourself and those you care about, with affordable, healthy foods. The more community members believe in this, the more ground we have won in the battle against climate change. By growing your own produce, you are not relying as much on the shipment of goods. Instead of purchasing those blueberries from Maine, you could grow your own and save the world those 3,000+ miles to travel across the US. All the while you are eating healthier, getting exercise, and connecting with your local community!

Community Supported Agriculture

Okay let’s say you don’t have access to green areas to grow your own veggies. Another program that APIOPA is pushing are CSA programs. Most simply put, CSA programs connect community members with farmers, and create a relationship where the produce of the farmer are made directly available to the community. It is a symbiotic relationship that supports the small business farmer, but also puts organic, healthy fruits and veggies in to the hands of community members. Read more about the two CSAs we are working on here.

Purchasing produce locally has a very similar impact to growing your own veggies; you are cutting down on the movement of goods while connecting yourself with healthy food! There are many different CSA programs out there, and they are usually very affordable. If you look around and can’t find one, do what APIOPA did; start your own! APIOPA connected with a local Hmong farmer and we worked out a deal with him where we connect his Asian vegetables with our community members. Read more about it here.

What’s your excuse?

For those who ask what they can do to fight climate change and global warming, I’ve discussed two different ways you can impact globally, by creating change locally. We still need to tackle the bigger policy issues on carbon emissions, but as that is going on, we each can do our little part in repairing the damage we continue to inflict on this earth.

Office of Minority Health: Funding Opportunities

fightapiobesity — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:00:29 +0000

Federal Grants

Minority Population Specific: $500k or less . . .

HHS/National Institutes of Health: Health Promotion Among Racial and Ethnic Minority Males (R21). View Full Announcement
HHS/National Institutes of Health: Interventions for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Native American Populations (R01). View Full Announcement

$500k or more . . .

HHS/Agency for Health Care Research and Quality: Limited Competition: Continuation of Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS IV) (U18) Grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Extension of the World Trade Center Health Registry (U50) Grant. View Full Announcement
Corporation for National and Community Service: Social Innovation Fund FY 2012 Grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Health Resources & Services Administration: Centers of Excellence Program (COE) Grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Health Resources & Services Administration: Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Part D Grants for Coordinated HIV Services and Access to Research for Women, Infants, Children, and Youth (WICY) View Full Announcement
HHS/Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns Grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Initiatives to Educate State Officials and Policy Makers about Priority Public Health Issues Related to the Prevention and Control of STDs and HIV/AIDS, NCHHSTP Grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Health Resources & Services Administration: Child and Adolescent Injury and Violence Prevention Resource Centers (CAIVP) Cooperative Agreement Program Grant. View Full Announcement

$500k or less . . .

HHS/National Institutes of Health: Academic-Community Partnership Conference Series (R13) Grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Communication and Technical Assistance Support for HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs, NCHHSTP/DHAP Grant. This award will be a continuation of funds intended only for grantees previously awarded under PS09-921 Communication and Technical Assistance Support for HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs . View Full Announcement
HHS/Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration: Drug Free Communities Support Program grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration: 2012 State Peer Awards for Health Care Reform Education. View Full Announcement [PDF | 188KB ]
HHS/Health Resources & Services Administration: Affordable Care Act – Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Research Network. View Full Announcement
DOJ/ Office of Justice Programs: Justice and Mental Health Collaboration State-Based Capacity Building Program FY 2012 Competitive Grant Announcement. View Full Announcement [PDF | 118KB ]
HHS/Health Resources & Services Administration: Coordinating Grant for Children’s Vision Screening Grant. View Full Announcement
HHS/Health Resources & Services Administration: Reducing Loss to Follow-up after Failure to Pass Newborn Hearing Screening Grant. View Full Announcement

Non Federal Grants

Minority Population Specific: $500k or less . . .

First Nations Development Institute: Native Youth & Culture Fund. View Full Announcement

$500k or more . . .

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: State Health Access Reform Evaluation Grant. View Full Announcement

$500k or less . . .

The QPR Institute: Gatekeeper Training for Suicide Prevention Program Mini-Grants for Community Capacity Building. View Full Announcement [PDF | 41KB ]
Hogg Foundation for Mental Health: Hogg Mental Health Policy Fellows project. Texas organizations only. View Full Announcement
Office of Statewide Health Planning & Development (OSHPD): Health Careers Training Program (HCTP) Mini-Grants. View Full Announcement

Scholarships/Fellowships

Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health: Center for American Indian Health Training & Scholarship Program. View Full Announcement
CDC: Public Health Associate Program (PHAP). View Full Announcement

Child health expert says GA’s stark anti-obesity ads stigmatize

fightapiobesity — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:00:32 +0000

Stark anti-obesity ads in Georgia have generated fiery debate across the nation since they began appearing on billboards this past August in the Atlanta area. Now Alan Guttmacher, a leading child health expert at the Nation Institutes of Health has come out against the ads, saying they carry a “great risk of increasing stigma” for overweight children.

The campaign, which has now spread to TV spots as well, uses images of overweight children, along with messages like “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid,” and “It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not.”

Georgia ranks second in the nation in childhood obesity, next to Mississippi. Connecticut, by comparison, ranks 40th. In Georgia, nearly 40 percent of children are overweight or obese.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 12.5 million, or 17 percent, of American children ages 2 to 19 are obese. These rates have almost tripled since 1980. With one in three children at risk for preventable diseases like diabetes and heart disease due to being overweight or obese, the Strong4Lifead campaign, spearheaded by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, was intended to highlight the role parents and caregivers have in the growing health epidemic.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Child health expert says GA’s stark anti-obesity ads stigmatize – Hartford healthy living | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/healthy-living-in-hartford/child-health-expert-says-ga-s-stark-anti-obesity-ads-stigmatize#ixzz1mHzElysp

Grant Opportunity from EAT4Health

fightapiobesity — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:02:33 +0000

Greetings!

The Praxis Project is proud to announce the call for Letters of Interest for Everybody at the Table for Health (EAT4Health), a national leadership development initiative of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. EAT4Health will build and leverage the strengths of grassroots organizations alongside the expertise of DC-based national organizations to foster a more informed, inclusive, and powerful advocacy process for food and farm policies that serve the goals of good health, environmental sustainability, and economic justice for all.

EAT4Health, a three year initiative, will initially provide funding and technical assistance for four community based organizations (CBOs). It is hoped that financial support for the initiative will grow so that an additional six CBOs can be brought into the initiative in its second year, creating a cohort of ten grantee partners.

Each CBO will annually receive a program support grant of $50,000, a fellowship award of $40,000, and $10,000 to use to contract placement of the Fellow with a DC-area national advocacy organization of their choice. Groups that remain in compliance with the terms of their grant agreement may receive funding for each year of the three-year EAT4Health initiative.

What kind of organizations should consider applying for EAT4Health funds?*

Non-profit, organizations who organize community members, workers and/or youth and whose work:

Currently supports community food-related initiatives that address one or more of the following issues: public health, nutrition, food access, urban agriculture, family farming, environmental justice, food-oriented business development, labor rights;
Provides a mechanism for low-income communities and communities of color to advocate for better food-related policies on behalf of their own communities.
Youth-led organizing groups and community-based groups with youth-organizing components are strongly encouraged to apply.

Examples of food and farm policy objectives for community based organizations include, but are not limited to, action to: enforce pollution standards on emissions from factory farms; increase public investment in regional food infrastructure, such as food hubs and commercial kitchens; require labeling of genetically modified foods; expand incentives for the purchase of fruits and vegetables using SNAP and WIC benefits; strengthen guidelines meant to curb predatory marketing of unhealthy food to children and teenagers.

For more information please visit us at www.EAT4Healthpartners.org where you can access the on-line application, sign up for information sessions and learn more about the EAT4Health initiative!

EAT4Health is a national program of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation in partnership with The Praxis Project and Community Science. The Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation is a national foundation that supports grassroots organizations and movements in the United States working to change environmental, social, economic and political conditions to bring about a more just, equitable and sustainable world. The Foundation supports nonprofit organizations that build the power of people – those most impacted and marginalized – to be actively involved in advancing solutions to the problems they face. The Praxis Project is a nonprofit organization that builds partnerships with local groups to influence policy making to address the underlying, systemic causes of community problems. Community Science is an award winning research and development organization that works with governments, foundations, and non-profit organizations on solutions to social problems through community and other systems changes. For more information on the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation please visit us on the web: www.noyes.org. For more information on Praxis and our other initiatives please visit us on the web at www.thepraxisproject.org. For more information on Community Science’s initiative, please visit us on the web www.communityscience.com.

Junk food plentiful at nation’s elementary schools despite anti-obesity campaigns, study finds

fightapiobesity — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:00:56 +0000

CHICAGO — Junk food remains plentiful at the nation’s elementary schools despite widespread efforts to curb childhood obesity, a new study suggests.Between 2006 and 2010, nearly half of public and private schools surveyed sold sweet or salty snack foods in vending machines or other places, the study found.

There was little change over the four years, a surprising finding given vocal advocacy campaigns to improve kids’ diets, said researcher Lindsey Turner, a health psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the study’s lead author.

The study focused on snacks not sold during mealtimes, which until recently weren’t subject to government nutrition standards.

Schools most likely to sell chips, cookies or similar foods were in the South, where obesity rates are the highest; these foods were scarcest at schools in the West.

The results are concerning, Turner said, because they show that many schools have not heeded messages from health advocates including the Institute of Medicine, which in a 2007 report urged limiting availability of food in schools outside of mealtimes, and said these items should not be sugary, salty or fatty snack foods.

Many schools in the study also offered more healthy foods outside of mealtimes, including fruit and vegetables. But selling them along with junk food may tempt kids to skip the healthy options, and sends “mixed messages about healthful nutrition,” Dr. Thomas Robinson, a Stanford University pediatrician and obesity prevention researcher.

Robinson called the study results “sobering” and said a key strategy for reversing childhood obesity includes improving nutrition in schools.

Recent data suggest that almost 20 percent of elementary school children nationwide are obese. Policies that limit junk food sold in schools have been linked with less obesity among students, said C. Tracy Orleans, a senior scientist at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which paid for the study.

The study appears in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, released Monday. Robinson wrote an accompanying editorial.

Anti-obesity advocates also have pushed to remove sugary sodas from schools, and some states and schools have enacted bans. Also, a 2010 report found a big decline in sales of these drinks to schools during some of the years studied.

The new study, which focused only on foods, is based on surveys mailed to principals at public and private elementary schools. Nearly 4,000 responded, or more than half of those contacted. The participating schools were nationally representative and there were no geographic or economic differences in schools that didn’t respond that would affect the results, Turner said.

Overall, about 45 percent of schools sold sugary and salty snacks. Some schools sold low-fat salty snacks and baked goods, including pretzels and low-fat ice cream, but their high sugar or salt content makes them a poor choice, Turner said.

Candy, salty snacks and regular-fat baked goods were more common at private schools than public schools; and low-fat ice cream was more common at both types of schools than full-fat ice cream snacks.

The study authors say their results should encourage the U.S. Department of Agriculture to crack down on junk food in schools. A law enacted in December 2010, after the study ended, gives the agency authority to do so, and it is developing changes.

Before that measure, USDA policy restricted schools from selling foods “of minimal nutritional value” during mealtimes. Under the new law, the agency can set nutrition standards for all foods sold in U.S. schools.

Another USDA change announced last month focuses on making school lunches healthier, with changes including less sodium and more whole grains.

The changes affecting snack foods “need to be comprehensive, they need to be strong, they need to be specific,” and they could be “a game-changer,” said Orleans.

A website for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service says restricting these foods can pose challenges for schools, because many rely on sales of snack foods to boost revenue. But it also explains why changes are needed.

“The constant availability of foods and beverages may increase the likelihood of impulse buying and contribute to overeating by some students,” the USDA website says.

It lists states and school districts that have imposed some restrictions on these foods.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/junk-food-plentiful-at-nations-elementary-schools-despite-anti-obesity-campaigns-study-finds/2012/02/06/gIQAEPSauQ_story.html

Obesity Appears Linked to Pain

fightapiobesity — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:00:46 +0000

FRIDAY, Feb. 10 (HealthDay News) — There’s a clear link between obesity and pain, suggests a new study that finds the heaviest people suffer the greatest discomfort.

Researchers examined data from more than 1 million people who were asked about their health, pain and well-being in telephone surveys conducted between 2008 and 2010. Thirty-eight percent of the participants were overweight and 25 percent were obese. Those who were obese were classified into one of three obesity levels as defined by the World Health Organization.

Compared to people with low to normal weight, pain rates were 20 percent higher for overweight people, 68 percent higher for those in the Obese 1 group, 136 percent higher for the Obese 2 group, and 254 percent higher for the Obese 3 group.

The researchers also found that as people age, excess weight is associated with even higher levels of pain.

The study was published recently in the online edition of the journal Obesity.

“Our findings confirm and extend earlier studies about the link between obesity and pain. These findings hold true after we accounted for several common pain conditions and across gender and age,” Arthur Stone, vice chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, said in a university news release.

“We wanted to explore this relationship further by checking to see if it was due to painful diseases that cause reduced activity, which in turn causes increased weight,” Joan Broderick, an associate professor in Stony Brook’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science and School of Public Health, said in the news release.

“We found that ‘pain yesterday’ was definitely more common among people with diseases that cause bodily pain. Even so, when we controlled for these specific diseases, the weight-pain relationship held up. This finding suggests that obesity alone may cause pain, aside from the presence of painful diseases,” she said.

Musculoskeletal pain was the source of some of the pain, according to the report, but it wasn’t the only cause.

Researchers say there are other possible explanations why many obese people suffer from pain, including that the excess fat may trigger processes that result in inflammation and pain. Depression is another possibility.

More research into the pain-obesity connection is needed, they said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about pain.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/02/10/obesity-appears-linked-to-pain

Public Health Law Research Releases Call for Proposals

fightapiobesity — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:00:39 +0000

Public Health Law Research: Making the Case for Laws That Improve Health
Application Deadline: April 4, 2012 3:00 PM EDT

Public Health Law Research (PHLR) is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The program seeks to build the evidence for and strengthen the use of regulatory, legal and policy solutions to improve public health. PHLR is equally interested in identifying and ameliorating laws and legal practices that unintentionally harm health. PHLR’s purpose is to answer important questions, such as: How does law influence health and health behavior? Which laws have the greatest impact? Can current laws be made more effective through better enforcement, or do they require amendment? This kind of rigorous, credible research can inform and guide the crafting and implementation of laws that promote public health.

More details and how to apply

You have received this email alert because you have elected to receive information from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on: Public Health.

Support the Cardin-Cochran Transportation Amendment!

fightapiobesity — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:00:05 +0000

The reauthorization of the federal transportation law presents an opportunity to promote, enforce, and expand health, safety, and equity in transportation policy. Unfortunately, as written, the Senate’s transportation bill removes dedicated funding for walking and bicycling and allows state departments of transportation to opt out of spending any money on safe street programs. Fortunately, Senators Cardin and Cochran will offer an amendment that would improve the bill by ensuring that local governments can apply directly for funds to build safe and healthy walking and bicycling infrastructure.

Please take the time to send a message to your Senators urging them to vote “Yes” on the Cardin-Cochran amendment.

https://secure3.convio.net/apha/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=819&JServSessionIdr004=pux160kt23.app305a

Learn how to frame messages to make the case for environmental change

fightapiobesity — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:00:31 +0000

Join Berkeley Media Studies Group and Strategic Alliance on February 22 for their second collaborative webinar on maximizing media advocacy to impact the public debate and affect health policy.

Making the Case for Healthy Food and Activity Environments:
Shaping Public Debate with Framing and Messages
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Time: 11:00 am – 12:30 pm PDT
Click here to register!

The previous webinar provided a primer on how to use media advocacy strategically to move a policy agenda forward. Now, we will dive deeper into the topic of framing – what it is and why it matters – to help participants develop messages in advocacy campaigns that highlight the need for environmental solutions. Through a case study and examples drawn from recent policy issues, Strategic Alliance and BMSG will provide practical tips to help craft effective messages to reframe critical food and physical-activity related issues from an upstream perspective. By harnessing the power of the media to highlight effective environmental and policy solutions, advocates can advance the public discussion on health from the ground up. Register today!

Re-Imagining Agriculture: Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurship in Southern California

fightapiobesity — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:40:34 +0000

Event Details

Please join Seedstock, a sustainable agriculture media company that promotes entrepreneurship and sustainability in agriculture, in association with the Entrepreneur Association and the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies on March 7, from 6pm – 9pm at the UCLA Anderson School of Management for the event, Re-Imagining Agriculture: Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurship in Southern California. The event will bring together entrepreneurs, students, investors and other professionals from around the Southern California area to discuss and explore solutions to the challenges faced by modern agriculture.

The event will feature networking opportunities as well as a moderated panel with several sustainable agriculture entrepreneurs discussing their companies, their perceptions of the marketplace opportunity for sustainable agriculture, challenges that they face and more. Confirmed participants include:

Colin and Karen Archipley: CEO and Co-founder/Vice President, respectively, of Archi’s Acres and the Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training (VSAT) program. Archi’s Acres is a small-scale organic farm in Southern California established in 2007 by decorated Marine Sergeant Colin Archipley and his wife Karen. At Archi’s Acres the couple has created the Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training (VSAT) program to offer combat veterans meaningful opportunities in the high-growth industry of sustainable farming.

Jesse DuBois and Dan Allen: CEO and CFO, respectively, of Farmscape Gardens, a Los Feliz, Los Angeles-based organic gardening social enterprise that empowers individuals to take control of their food supply by providing them with the necessary organic and sustainable tools to create a network of thriving, small-scale urban farms. Since its founding, Farmscape Gardens, an organic garden installation and maintenance company, has become the largest urban farming venture in Southern California.

David Rosenstein: Founder of EVO Farm, an urban farming organization working to produce high yields of fresh produce that exceed organic standards within walking distance of any neighborhood. EVO Farm operates the only commercial aquapoincs farm in Los Angeles. David is Chair of the Aquaponics Association- Western Region. He also serves on the Los Angeles Food Policy Council.

Pierre Sleiman: Founder and CEO of Go Green Agriculture, a company whose overall goal is to accelerate the movement towards decentralizing agricultural production and distribution in the United States and other countries. Go Green Agriculture believes that its role is to further integrate information systems technology with greenhouse automation to develop an effective system that will allow farming to be heavily integrated into urban living.

Drinks and hors d’oeuvres provided by event sponsor Whole Foods Market, Westwood will be served.

Directions: http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/visit.xml

Metered parking available in the parking structures 4 and 5, a short walk from the school

http://seedstockandersonevent.eventbrite.com/

Study indicates obesity may be infectious

fightapiobesity — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:00:52 +0000

It’s been theorized for a while that obesity can be “spread” between friends and family members due to the natural tendency to copy one another’s eating habits, but a new study suggests that obesity could actually be infectious.

The study, which was published online Feb. 1 in the journal Nature, showed that mice which were engineered to have a particular immune deficiency developed fatty liver disease and gained weight when fed a diet of Western-style foods. Surprisingly, when these immune-deficient mice were put in cages with healthy mice, the healthy mice started to develop symptoms of liver disease, and also gain weight.

The reason may be microbes in the stomachs of the mice. The disturbance in the immune systems of the mice may have affected the bacteria in their stomachs, according to study researcher Richard Flavell, a professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine.

Flavell said that while beings normally live in symbiosis with the bacteria in the digestive system, in the study, the number of bacteria associated associated with disease increased 1,000-fold in mice with immune problems. These “bad” bacteria were transmitted from mouse to mouse, changing the microbes in the digestive system of the healthy mice, and making them fat.

Flavell said, “We could make a mouse fatter just by putting it in the same cage as the other mouse,”

It’s possible that humans could suffer similar effects, but much more research is necessary to find out, according to Flavell. The bacteria was transferred very easily in the study because mice tend to eat each other’s feces, a behavior that is not often seen in humans.

Fatty liver disease is very common among obese people, affecting between 75 percent and 100 percent of the obese population, according to researchers. In the past, if two family members living in the same household both became obese or developed liver disease, it would have blamed on genetics. The new study suggests that it could be more than that.

If the findings of the mouse study apply to people, they would suggest that changes need to be made in the approaces taken to obesit and fatty liver disease. Perhaps antibiotics or probitotics could be added to treatment plans to address gut microorganisms, according to Flavell.

Study of mice shows obesity may be infectious. Via Google Images.

Dr. Jasmohan Bajaj, an associate professor of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at Virginia Commonwealth University,said, “This is a very thought-provoking study that underlines the role of the bugs that we all carry inside us in determining our susceptibility to liver disease and its complications.” Bajaj, who was not involved in the study, suggested that more research is needed with humans, who are considerably more complex than mice, to fully comprehend the role of digestive bacteria in liver disease, but “these experiments form a key step forward.”

Source: vitals.msnbc.msn.com

http://www.imperfectparent.com/topics/2012/02/05/study-indicates-obesity-may-be-infectious/

Sugar May Be Bad, But Is the Alternative Worse?

fightapiobesity — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:00:58 +0000

A controversial proposal would regulate sugar as a toxic substance, and not simply because it’s a calorie-rich enabler of obesity. Some researchers say it’s intrinsically dangerous, not unlike alcohol or tobacco, with unique properties that set off a hormonal cascade ending in higher risks of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

It’s not a scientifically certain proposition, though a growing body of research suggests it may very well be true, and the implications are thorny. Even people sympathetic to public health-based regulations may balk at treating pastries as cigarettes, as University of California, San Francisco nutritionists suggested in a Feb. 2 Nature paper.

But to anyone looking to artificial sweeteners as an alternative, as pastel-packaged reassurances that regulators won’t ever need to pry donuts from their cold, dead and pudgy hands, science offers only more uncertainty. Some studies even suggest that fake sugar may cause the same problems as real sugar.

“That’s the $64,000 question,” said Susan Swithers of the Ingestive Behavior Research Center at Purdue University. “There are several epidemiological studies showing increased risk of metabolic syndrome in coincidence with the consumption of diet sodas” — a rich source of sweeteners. “But how they should be interpreted is not really clear right now. Because they’re correlational studies, they don’t tell us what caused what.”

Artificial sweeteners are a fast-growing, multi-billion dollar product, present in thousands of foodstuffs and synthesized by chemists as zealously as drug researchers pursue blockbuster drugs. But as described in a massive 2008 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Review, the seemingly obvious health benefits expected of low-calorie sugar replacements have failed to materialize.

Even as Americans consumed more sweeteners, waistlines continued to expand. Cause and effect was ambiguous: Sweeteners might lead to weight gain, but maybe people most prone to gaining weight consume the most sweeteners. “This association may be coincidental or causal, and either mode of directionality is plausible,” concluded that study’s authors.

‘Artificial sweetener use might be fueling — rather than fighting — our escalating obesity epidemic.’

Other researchers, however, are more suspicious. When University of Texas Health Science Center epidemiologists conducted a 9-year-long study of 5,158 adult residents of San Antonio, Texas, they found a link between sweeteners and obesity. It persisted even after statistically accounting for gender, ethnicity, diet and beginning-of-diet body mass index. “These findings raise the question whether artificial sweetener use might be fueling — rather than fighting — our escalating obesity epidemic,” they wrote.

Another study of 6,184 adult Americans linked diet soda consumption with higher rates of metabolic syndrome, the umbrella term for a physiological disruption that leads to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Once again, the link survived statistical adjustment for demographics, lifestyle and diet.

That’s precisely what’s expected from eating too much sugar, which at least in rats is converted in the liver to fat. That in turn provokes, via as-yet-unidentified mechanisms, resistance to insulin, a hormone used by cells to process glucose, better known as blood sugar. When insulin’s signals are ignored, blood sugar levels rise. Metabolic syndrome follows. But why should this happen when eating fake sugar, not real?

Swithers thinks she knows. In 2008, she and fellow Purdue researcher Terry Davidson fed rats a yogurt supplement sweetened either with glucose, a simple sugar, or zero-calorie saccharin. Apart from the supplement, both groups ate standard rat fare. Those that ate saccharin packed on more fat, gained more weight and consumed extra calories. A follow-up 2009 study reinforced the findings, and found that unusual weight gain persisted even when rats stopped eating sweeteners.

According to Swithers, two mechanisms may be responsible. When the rats’ bodies learned that sweetness didn’t predict an imminent caloric rush, as would naturally be produced by sugar-rich foods, their bodies may have automatically shifted into calorie-saving mode. At the same time, metabolic acceleration that normally occurs when eating high-calorie foods, and helps to process them, may have been slowed.

“All of our work has been in rats. We think similar processes happen in humans, but we haven’t tested them,” Swithers said.

Image: Steve Snodgrass/Flickr

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/artificial-sweeteners/

Rebranding the Food Movement to Broaden its Appeal

fightapiobesity — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:00:13 +0000

As entrepreneurs and food activists attempt to bring fresh produce to more and more urban food deserts, they’re setting their crosshairs on one target in particular: the corner store. Packed to the gills with cigarettes, lotto tickets, liquor, and processed foods, the shops do little to nourish the communities where they operate, and in many urban areas—particularly black, Latino, or low-income neighborhoods—these stores are the only places to buy any food at all.

According to Alphonzo and Alison Cross, founders of The Boxcar Grocer in Atlanta (and winners of GOOD’s contest to redesign the supermarket), this needs to change. Their just-opened corner store alternative, where local and organic food options get prime shelf space, is an attempt to respect “the fact that every community desires fresh food, and locally made food is just about as fresh as you can get,” says Alison.

The Castleberry Hill neighborhood, where Boxcar sits, is full of preserved railroad warehouses (hence the name), but doesn’t have another decent grocery store within five miles, despite its proximity to City Hall and college campuses. “We chose to put the store here exactly for this reason,” says Alison. “The demographics, to us, looked like a sure sign of success.”

The brother-sister duo’s mission is to broaden the appeal of the food movement to embrace more black eaters. The first step is the vintage train-themed brand. ”Railroads are great connectors,” according to Alison. “They are also what took African Americans out of the South, saving our lives in many instances, as well as brought them back to visit their families.” While the typical branding on the nonprofits and businesses of the local food movement tends to idealize an agricultural lifestyle, that’s “something the African American community does not really desire to go back to, even though we need to address lots of health issues directly related to the type of foods we’re eating,” Alison says.

The store has enjoyed the support of “the entire Atlanta community” since its launch in November, with residents of other neighborhoods already asking the Crosses to open outposts. “The only real challenge,” Alison says, “is how to keep enough food on the shelves on a daily basis.”

Poor, minority residents face most health risks with climate change

fightapiobesity — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:00:04 +0000

No mention of Asians or Pacific Islanders, but when you mention low-income areas of LA County (esp Long Beach), there are pockets of API communities that are impacted.

—

Poor, urban and minority residents are most at risk for health problems linked to climate change, according to a new California Department of Public Health analysis of Los Angeles and Fresno counties.

The department examined social and environmental factors ranging from the rising sea level to public transportation access and found that African Americans and Latinos living in these counties are more likely to be exposed to health and safety risks related to poor air quality, heat waves, flooding and wildfires stemming from climate change.

“Clearly, climate change risks are not equal across the state or within individual counties,” according to the report [PDF]. “Identifying communities at greatest risk is a necessary step in efficiently employing limited resources to protect public health.”

In Los Angeles County, neighborhoods near Santa Monica and Long Beach were among those deemed most vulnerable, “largely from risks due to sea level rise, but also partially attributable to poor public transit, wildfire risk, and a large proportion of elderly living alone,” the report said.

The study also found that there was a notable economic disparity between families living in the areas most vulnerable to climate change and those who didn’t – the more at-risk families earned between 40 and 55 percent less each year than the least vulnerable families. Residents living downtown or in urban areas were also more vulnerable, the study said.

A western portion of Fresno County near Mendota also was found to be especially susceptible to climate change-related safety and health problems.

Public health experts say these disparities in climate-related health risks can partially be explained by living conditions and a poor baseline status of health.

“If you are low-income, you may live in a facility that is in poor repair, and you can’t open the windows, or you don’t have air conditioning. Then you may be more at risk for heat-related activity. It’s the same with the cold,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “The fact is that low-income communities, especially those of color, start with a health deficit. No one does well with bad air quality, but when you have poor health status, you’re going to be more at risk.”

Across the country, public health departments have become increasingly focused on the connection between health and climate change. The California analysis – the first to look at climate change health and safety risks at a county level – is based on a methodology developed by researchers at Occidental College in Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley, and it is part of an effort to help local officials plan and identify potential policies for handling the human health impacts of climate change.

“Given that climate change presents a suite of risks and not a single risk, this is more of a planning tool for identifying which communities you should be taking some time to make sure you address,” said Manuel Pastor, who directs USC’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and advised the state health department analysis. “You look at a map like this, and you see the areas that need more support. It could inform different preventative and emergency response strategies.”

A bill introduced in November by U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., also calls for the development of a national strategic action plan to respond to “rising health threats from climate change.”

These efforts have been applauded by the American Public Health Association.

“If you think about the history of public health, our history has been all about making sure that the water is safe to drink, the food is safe to eat, and the environment is safe to be in, and all of those things can be disrupted with climate change,” Benjamin said.

But climate change skeptics say California’s climate-and-health analysis is misleading and unnecessary.

Richard S. Lindzen, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a prominent climate change skeptic, said the issue is often erroneously conflated with extreme weather or natural disasters.

“In California, if you have extremes of warm or cold weather, it’s not due to global warming; it’s due to which direction the wind is blowing,” Lindzen said. Public health departments are merely “coming along for the ride,” he said. “As far as I can tell, the global warming impact on California health has to be immeasurable at this stage.”

UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller, a onetime skeptic who changed his position on climate change after conducting research funded by other skeptics, said that while “there is evidence of climate change that is visible to scientists but not to the everyday person,” the state public health department’s analysis is of limited use.

“It’s certainly true that the poor people of our state are always the most vulnerable to any change whatsoever – you don’t have to do an analysis to figure that out,” he said. “If you want to spend money on the poor, I suspect preparing for climate change is the least effective way to do that. The poor will always need help, and I don’t think it should be spent on something like a fad like climate extremes and predictions that things might get worse.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists disagrees. According to a 2011 study [PDF], California would experience the “biggest economic impacts and the biggest heath impacts when ozone and temperatures increase” due to climate change, said Elizabeth Perera of the union’s climate and energy program. That study projected that an increase in ozone pollution would result in about $729 million in related health care spending in California in 2020.

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/poor-minority-residents-face-most-health-risks-climate-change-14745

Legalize Urban Beekeeping in Los Angeles!

fightapiobesity — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:22 +0000

Over the last three years, more than one in three honeybee colonies collapsed nationwide, a phenomenon now called Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. According to the USDA, about one-third of our food is thanks to the work of bees, making CCD one of the broadest environmental and food security challenges of our time. And while there is no one smoking gun causing CCD, scientists now widely agree that it is a result of a combination of factors, made manifest by industrial beekeeping, a practice which involves trucking thousands of hives great distances to pollinate crops, exposing bees to countless pesticides, interfering with the species natural defenses by treating them with miticides and antibiotics, and feeding them high fructose corn syrup. This deadly cocktail has made bees incredibly vulnerable and on the brink of collapse. That is, only if we fail to act, if we fail to recognize this disaster in the making and do not take strong action to counter the slow march to extinction.

Atlanta, New York, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Spokane, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and most recently Santa Monica have all taken decisive action and legalized urban beekeeping.

Los Angeles currently outlaws beekeeping in residential areas, and the city’s policy is to exterminate all feral honey bees. With worldwide bee populations threatened with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and urban beekeeping more popular than ever, this policy needs to change. We believe it to be a necessary and just measure requiring immediate action.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Four Community Councils within Los Angeles (Mar Vista, Del Rey, Greater Griffith Park, and South Robertson) have already voted in favor of supporting an urban beekeeping program in residentially zoned districts. The votes came after months of campaigning by Los Angeles residents and more than 2,000 people signed petitions on Change.org. The Community Council’s are calling for a Motion from Los Angeles Councilmember Bill Rosendahl to direct the City Planning Department to initiate an ordinance that would allow Los Angeles residents to raise their own honeybees, a practice that helps boost struggling honeybee populations and ensures local food security.

Please sign our petition to let the Los Angeles City Council know that this is an important issue that they should move on as soon as possible!

In ‘food deserts,’ attracting grocers remains a struggle

fightapiobesity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:00:51 +0000

BOYNTON BEACH — A modest green building on the south side of Boynton Beach Boulevard houses the Ocean Avenue Green Market, offering a small selection of fruit, vegetables and a bakery.

Operating the small-scale market has been a battle for owner Sherry Johnson.

“We’re in a very poor economic community,” Johnson said. “It’s hard to get support.”

Yet nearby residents badly need access to fresh food. The Ocean Avenue market is located at the edge of one of Palm Beach County’s 27 “food deserts”, defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an area that has little to no access to a grocery store offering fresh produce, whole grains and milk within one mile.

Food deserts are a concern across the country. A January Princeton University study found that people who live in a food desert are 25 to 46 percent less likely to have a healthy diet than those with a supermarket near their home.

A lack of knowledge about what foods are healthy contributes to obesity in low-income areas.

Research done on the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program found that food education can change eating habits and lead to higher consumption of fruits and vegetables.

The federal government has stepped in to address the problem, launching programs like Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign, which addresses childhood obesity issues.

The Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a collaboration between the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Treasury and Health and Human Services, is intended to fund food programs in areas where healthy food is not readily available.

The agriculture department earlier this month announced $10 million in funding for its Farmer’s Market Promotion Program that provides grants from $5,000 to $100,000 to any agriculture producer who sells a product directly to consumers. Program Manager Carmen Humphrey said that this year’s priority is food deserts.

For Sherry Johnson, securing a grant would be a lifeline.

“If we get the USDA money, that will provide us with some marketing capabilities,” Johnson said.

The lack of a supermarket near the four-mile stretch of the Seacrest Boulevard corridor has long been a problem, said Vivian Brooks, executive director for Boynton Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency.

Major grocery chains like Publix and Winn-Dixie build in densely populated areas. But the area identified as a food desert in Boynton Beach only has about 10,000 residents, which is not enough to attract them.

“It’s not easy to build a grocery store; it has certain needs.” Brooks said. “And the private sector doesn’t see a need.”

Boynton Beach is redeveloping homes around Martin Luther King and Seacrest Boulevards, to attract more people to the area.

Brooks said the CRA has offered free land and grants to potential developers like Equity One to build in the area, but no one has taken them up on it. They later tried opening a green market, a successful staple in some cities, but shut it down because there was no demand.

“We’ve tried the green market concept and I don’t know why, but it doesn’t work,” Brooks said.

Jesse Goldfinger, the owner of the Woolbright Farmers Market said, green markets do work if the public has adequate access. His market has been located on heavily traveled Woolbright Road for the past eight years.

“I’ve got traffic coming in from I-95 and the beach,” Golfinger said. “If I moved my whole operation between Seacrest and MLK, I wouldn’t get all of this.”

For areas that fail to attract big box supermarkets, discount grocery stores or a city-supported market would be options.

In Riviera Beach, where almost 12,000 people have limited access to grocery stores, plans are in the works for a city and county collaboration to fund a public market that offers fresh produce. Community Redevelopment Agency Director Tony Brown said the market would be at the Municipal Marina, about five blocks outside the food desert.

Like Brooks, Brown said that it is a challenge to attract grocers to the area.

“The retail model doesn’t take into account communities where there is a lower-income,” Brown said. “But there is just as much a need.”

Samoa: Choosing Between Free Trade and Public Health

fightapiobesity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:00:25 +0000

After a 13-year wait, the South Pacific island nation of Samoa should win approval to join the World Trade Organization next month after dropping its ban on turkey tails. The WTO welcomed the nation, with a population of about 193,000 (a bit more than Knoxville, Tenn.) once Samoa agreed to end its ban on the fatty poultry scraps and impose import tariffs instead. That’s good news for U.S. turkey farmers, who will regain a market for the low-value trimmings that often end up in pet food, says Roman Grynberg, a trade official for the Pacific region until 2009.

For Samoa, one of the world’s most obese nations, the deal is a mixed blessing. “These are the contradictions we have to face—where health is compromised for the sake of trade and development,” says Palanitina Tupuimatagi Toelupe, Samoa’s director general of health. The U.S. food industry sees the issue differently. “We feel it’s the consumers’ right to determine what foods they wish to consume, not the government’s,” says James H. Sumner, president of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council.

Samoan negotiators defend ending the ban as the only way to enjoy the increased trade and lowered costs of imports that WTO membership confers. “It filters down to the normal customer who will now have access to a wider variety of goods,” Namulauulu Sami Leota, president of the Chamber of Commerce, told the Samoa Observer newspaper. Reaching an agreement “was not an easy task,” added Namulauulu, who was involved in the final talks. Keith Rockwell, a spokesman for the WTO in Geneva, says the ban “was an issue on which Samoa took quite a tough line.”

Nauru, the world’s smallest republic and not yet a member of the WTO, introduced a 30 percent levy on imported sugar, candies, sodas, and flavored milk four years ago. Fiji, a member of the WTO since 1996, levied a 15 percent tax on cookies and candies in 2009.

A mix of culture, genetic susceptibility, and poor nutrition triggered the Pacific region’s obesity crisis. Female obesity rates in the region are alarming: Nauru (71 percent), Cook Islands (64 percent), Tonga (60 percent), Samoa (56 percent), and Palau, (51 percent), according to data from the World Health Organization. The same countries have the highest male obesity rates.

In 2008, at a WHO meeting in Manila, the Samoans asked for help countering multinationals’ food marketing strategies on the island. Stevenson J. Kuartei, Palau’s Health Minister, told the meeting that traditional diets, which protected against diabetes and high blood pressure, were threatened by globalization and free trade. Fiji also asked for help. U.S. delegates said prevention programs should be focused at the community or individual level. They lobbied to include a paragraph in the meeting’s final resolution “to encourage citizens to take responsibility for their own health,” according to the WHO’s record of the meeting.

At a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, in September, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan argued that willpower was not the issue. She blamed “a failure of political will at the highest level.” The Baku conclave preceded a United Nations summit in New York that was to produce a resolution for government action against physical inactivity and the use of harmful food ingredients, tobacco, and alcohol. The NCD Alliance, which represents more than 2,000 health advocacy groups, says delegates from the U.S. and other wealthy nations watered down the resolution and guidelines related to alcohol and tobacco use; consumption of salt, fatty, and sugary foods; and access to medicines. “We believe it was because of lobbying from the food, beverage, and the alcohol industry,” says Ann Keeling, the International Diabetes Federation’s chief executive officer and NCD Alliance chair.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/choosing-between-free-trade-and-public-health-11232011.html

School lunches feature local produce

fightapiobesity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:50 +0000

All the school rules prevent this from happening in Los Angeles. We need some reform so we can get fresh, GREAT-tasting veggies to our youth. PLUS we’d be cutting down on the pollution that comes with moving goods!

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For more than a year, students at Wood County public school districts have had the opportunity to taste local produce during their lunch periods. The goal of the taste tests was to introduce local foods to students and food service staff with hope of making them a mainstay on school lunch menus.

Throughout January, students at Auburndale, Nekoosa, Port Edwards, Pittsville, Marshfield and Wisconsin Rapids found locally grown baked potatoes in their hot lunch lines. Some of the schools also offered baked potato samples to cold lunch students.

“The more we can help make it easier for food service staff to integrate fresh, locally grown foods into their hot lunch menus, the better chance we have of creating a successful Farm to School program for the long run,” said Sue Anderson, local food procurement coordinator for the Get Active Wood County Farm to School program.

Each month, the Farm to School program helps connect local farmers and school food service staff to bring a new Harvest of the Month product into Wood County schools. The program highlights a single, locally grown fruit or vegetable to taste test. Students, teachers and parents also receive educational materials about that item.

January’s potatoes were grown by Joe and Barb Firkus at Sunny Grove Farms in Plover. Students and families learned about the Firkus’ farm along with fun facts and nutritional information about potatoes in a Harvest of the Month newsletter.

“I think Farm to School is a good idea,” said Pat Mertz, head cook at East Junior High in Wisconsin Rapids. “A lot of our students don’t eat fresh fruits and vegetables at home. They go home and eat fast food. This is a real meal for them. And they do like the fresh fruits and vegetables.”

“Students hear a lot about eating healthy at school,” said Linda Leinweber, a food service staff member at East Junior High. “I think a lot of kids are very conscious of it. We have a salad bar every day, and it’s amazing how many kids go through it.”

Developing a Farm to School network of food service staff, local farmers and procurement organizers is a work in progress, but bringing the baked potatoes into the hot lunch lines is a big step in the right direction. The success continues into February when students will sample locally grown sweet potatoes at their schools.

To get involved in the Farm to School initiative, email Sue Anderson at sue.eric.anderson@gmail.com.

Michelle Goetsch is the media/communication specialist for the Get Active Wood County Initiative. You can reach Michelle at mgoetsch@co.wood.wi.us.

Get kids to eat their veggies

fightapiobesity — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:00:58 +0000

Want kids to eat their vegetables? Try pictures, not words.

Using a Richfield elementary school as their lab, researchers from the University of Minnesota placed images of green beans and carrots on the cafeteria food trays for one day. More kids took vegetables, and more kids ate them, according to a study published online Wednesday.

The images sent the students a subtle signal that they should be putting veggies on their trays and — more importantly — that their friends would be doing the same, said Traci Mann, a psychologist and one of five faculty members leading the study.

“Kids — they don’t want to do what they’re told. Tell them to eat their vegetables? Forget about it,” Mann said. “What kids want to do is … what their friends are doing or what they think their friends are doing.”

The results exceeded the researchers’ expectations and suggested that a simple, low-cost strategy could be used by schools to improve students’ nutrition and curb the rising rate of obesity among children in the United States.

In psychological terms, the pictures might have created a new social “norm” for the students. Of course, the research showed that students not only opted to take vegetables. They actually ate them.

To test the strategy, researchers first monitored how many students chose vegetables for lunch on a typical day. They also weighed how many green beans or carrots were thrown away or left behind on the cafeteria tables or floor. Then they repeated the exercise a few weeks later, on a day when the students’ trays had pictures of beans and carrots on them.

On the typical day, 42 students took green beans. Each student who took beans ate about 19 grams of them. On the study day, 96 students took beans; each student who took them ate about 19.1 grams.

On the typical day, 77 students took carrots, and each ate about 31 grams. On the study day, 238 students took carrots; each student who took them ate about 27.1 grams.

This means that the students who always took carrots probably ate their usual amount, but that the students who took them for the first time ate less.

Either way, students need to be eating more carrots to meet nutrition guidelines, Mann said.

But the research at least showed that more children tried carrots, and that is an important first step, she said.

“The more you have a bite or two of a carrot,” she said, “the more you’re going to slowly start to get used to the taste.”

The U team, which includes professors in marketing, applied economics and food science, tested several different ways to “nudge” students at the Richfield STEM school (a science magnet school) to eat more veggies. In one instance, they moved vegetables to the front of the food line.

In another, they had the lunch lady offer verbal encouragement to each student to try vegetables.

Results of those efforts haven’t been published yet, but Mann said she had been most excited about the potential of putting images on trays because it was so subtle.

The idea came from a separate study in which researchers tested if shoppers would buy more fruits and vegetables if their grocery carts included special sections for produce. Mann said she couldn’t find any prior studies using the approach with school lunch trays.

“I was much more hopeful for this kind of nudge,” she said, “when the students did not feel like they were being pushed into doing something.”

Jeremy Olson • 612-673-7744

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/wellness/138531539.html

Cost to Build a Walkable and Bikeable SoCal in 25 years: $40 Billion

fightapiobesity — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:20:50 +0000

January 24, 2012 by ryebaerg 4 Comments

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Estimates SCAG region needs $40 Billion to build and support a healthy, walkable and bikeable SCAG Region.

Walking in Baldwin Park, CA. Photo Credit: HEAC on flickr

Background

In December of 2011, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) released the draft 2012 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Community Strategy (RTP/SCS) which will determine funding and set transportation priorities in the Southern California Region for the next 25 years. The RTP outlines the specific projects and the amount of funding available for different travel modes.

In Southern California 21 percent of all trips are made by people walking and bicycling (2009 National Household Travel Survey) and 25 percent of all roadway fatalities are bicyclists and pedestrians (2012 SCAG RTP). In addition, 24 percent of the residents in the SCAG region suffer from obesity with some populations reporting rates of up to 49.6 percent. This data points to an enormous need for infrastructure improvements for active transportation. The 2012 RTP/SCS allocates $6 billion dollars to bicycle and pedestrian projects over the course of the plan. This amounts to a mere 1.1 percent of the total $524.7 billion allocated over 25 years. Given the discrepancy between estimated funding in the RTP/SCS and the need for improvements to active transportation networks, it became apparent that a cost estimate was needed for building and maintaining these networks.

Methodology

To better determine the regions needs, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LACDPH) developed a methodology for calculating the costs of building active transportation networks based on existing data. LACDPH analyzed bicycle plans and pedestrian plans from multiple jurisdictions to determine the projected bicycle, pedestrian and related transit oriented district (TOD) costs on a per capita basis. Their work shows that the total costs for the entire region to be an estimated $40 billion.

LACDPH collected the costs for three types facilities: bicycle infrastructure, pedestrian infrastructure, and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure included in Transit Oriented Districts. These costs were then broken down on a per capita basis for each category. By doing this LACDPH then was able calculate the need for the entire SCAG region (6 Counties, 18 Million people) by multiplying the cost per capita by the population.

Traveling in Southern California – how do our Regional Transportation Plans address all modes and safety issues? . Photo Credit: HEAC on flickr

BICYCLE: To calculate the total funding needed to provide bicycle infrastructure for the entire SCAG region, LACDPH examined Bicycle Master Plans (BMPs) from 16 different cities in LA County and Gap Projects found in Metro’s Bicycle Transportation Strategic Plan. Both capital project costs and maintenance costs were developed on a per captia annual basis. Based on these calculations it would cost approximately $9 a year per person or $4.1 billion over 25 years to build and maintain the bicycle network in Southern California.

PEDESTRIAN: The estimated cost to build and maintain the pedestrian network was calculated by examining pedestrian master plans, maintenance needs in the City of Los Angeles and pedestrian improvement needs around schools based on Caltrans Cycle 9 Safe Routes to School projects. LACDPH found that the current need is approximately $77 a year per person or $34.8 billion dollars over the course of 25 years.

TRANSIT ORIENTED DISTRICTS: This section included the bicycle and pedestrian needs directly adjacent to rail and bus stations. For this estimate LACDPH calculated the costs based on per station estimates by the Center for Transit Oriented Development. Total costs for 194 stations equaled approximately $1.4 billion.

Conclusions

SCAG has stated that the 2012 plan triples the amount of funding dedicated for active transportation from $1.8 billion in 2008 to the $6 billion in the 2012 plan. However, given the historical lack of funding for these modes, this increase still does not come close to meeting the region’s needs, nor does it allocate an amount proportional to the number of accidents involving and trips taken by these modes. As noted the LACDPH estimates this need to be approximately $40 billion dollars over the 25 year period. The Safe Routes to School Southern California Network, which has been attending and commenting at SCAG Regional Transportation Plans since Spring of 2010, continues to urge SCAG policycmakers to increase the amount of funding available for active transportation in its RTP/SCS to better reflect this need.

http://saferoutescalifornia.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/dph_regional_need_40b/

Interested and want to show your support for these efforts? Please consider signing onto our February 2012 SCAG RTP comment letter by emailing emailing rye@saferoutespartnership.org by 5pm February 10, 2012.

For more background see:

Funding Opportunities

fightapiobesity — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:37 +0000

Compiled by our friends at APPEAL:

Funding Opportunities

The Michigan Department of Community Health is issuing a Request for Proposals for National Minority Health month. Ten mini-grants will be awarded which will range from $7,500 to $10,000 each. Responses to the RFP are due no later than 5:00 p.m. on February 21, 2012. Read more information.
National Institutes of Health is inviting new applications for a five-year Cooperative Agreement (U54) award that will transition the current Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN) to a research center. Application closing date: February 29, 2012. Read the announcement.
USDA/National Institute of Food and Agriculture announced the Alaska Native-Serving and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions Education Competitive Grants Program Grant. The purpose of this program is to promote and strengthen the ability of Alaska Native-Serving Institutions and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions to carry out education, applied research and related community development programs. The application closing date is March 1, 2012. View the full announcement.
National Institutes of Health invites grant applicants from institutions/organizations that propose to establish core centers that are part of an integrated program of nutrition and/or obesity-research. The application closing date in June 29, 2012. Read more information.
Clif Bar Family Foundation: Small Grants made to nonprofit organizations supporting the environment, healthy food systems, physical activity, and building strong communities. Applications must be received by February 15 for consideration during the first quarter of the year, and May 15, August 15, and November 15 for consideration of funding during the second, third and fourth quarters, respectively. For more information, visit the webpage.

Call for Proposals: Healthy Farms, Healthy People State Meetings Learning Community

fightapiobesity — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:17:11 +0000

With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) and Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) will foster a national learning community of nonprofit organizations hosting state level meetings promoting a cross-sector examination of the intersection between agriculture and human health. This project will provide technical assistance and limited funding to selected nonprofit organizations that commit to hosting such meetings in 2012. This initiative will complement the work of the Healthy Farms, Healthy People coalition (HFHP Coalition – http://hfhpcoalition.org/).

Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations working in health or agriculture that demonstrate an ability to work across sectors and host effective meetings. Meeting topics may include, but are not limited to, the role of the food system in health, the existing food environment, the challenges for farmers to grow healthy food, and the social justice implications of the food system. Applicants will be required to participate in a limited number of technical assistance calls and share meeting materials with NNPHI for broader dissemination.
Funding Amount: Up to $7,500 per applicant
Timeline: March 1, 2012-December 31, 2012

More info here

Equitable Strategies for Growing Urban Agriculture

fightapiobesity — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:00:53 +0000

Please register for this webinar.

Meeting Description:

A vibrant movement is afoot in cities across the country − farmers, activists, and community organizations are improving the health, economic outlook, and vitality of their communities through urban farming. Advocates are illustrating that urban agriculture is a pathway to making healthy food more available for low-income communities, a key to shifting the conversation on traditional economic revitalization efforts, and catalytic for battling the challenges of blight and abandonment.

Building from the recently released PolicyLink Urban Agriculture Tool, PolicyLink will be hosting a mini-series of webinars focusing on how low-income communities and communities of color are incorporating urban agriculture into their community development efforts and into policy infrastructures supporting this work.

The webinar in February will feature Green City Grower’s CEO Mary Donnell, Ian Marvy, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Added Value (see video here), and Malik Yakini, Chairman of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. Each panelist will discuss challenges and strategies for growing and sustaining urban agriculture projects in low-income communities and communities of color.

BPA Linked to Obesity & Linked to Behavior Problems in Baby Girls

fightapiobesity — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:00:15 +0000

BPA Linked to Behavior Problems in Baby Girls

“Baby girls who are exposed while in the womb to a chemical found commonly in plastics may develop behavior problems as children, a new study suggests,” Cory Hatch of MSNBC writes.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured BPA levels in the urine of 244 mothers at various times during pregnancy, and in their children at various times after birth. When the children reached age 3, their mothers completed two surveys designed to detect behavior and emotional problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.

Mothers with higher BPA levels in their urine during pregnancy tended to have 3-year-old girls with more anxious and depressed behavior, and poorer emotional control and inhibition, researchers found.

A similar effect was not seen in boys whose mothers showed high levels of BPA. And BPA exposure after a child was born had no affect on behavioral and emotional control, according to the study.

“Women with higher BPA levels during pregnancy— their children had higher scores in these surveys,” said study co-author Joe Braun, a research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health. “Typically, girls had more behavior problems.”

For more on this one, check out the MSNBC link above.

BPA Linked to Obesity

More recent news one BPA, from Environmental Health News: “High urinary levels of bisphenol A in older adults are associated with increased weight and waist size, both indicators of obesity that can lead to serious illness and disease,” according to a new study, “Urinary Bisphenol A (BPA) concentration associates with obesity and insulin resistance,” published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

“Researchers in China have found that adults over the age of 40 with higher levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in their urine tend to be obese, have more abdominal fat and be insulin resistant. These metabolic disorders can lead to further and more harmful health problems, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.”

This is not the first time the link has been made. “Prior epidemiological studies, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the journal PLoS One, have revealed links between BPA and metabolic disorders, consistent with this new research.”

Are you obese? Might depend on whether your doctor is, too

fightapiobesity — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:00:20 +0000

By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times / For the Booster Shots blogJanuary 26, 2012, 12:54 p.m.

Turns out obesity is in the eye of the beholder. Whether you’re diagnosed as obese is supposed to depend on your own body-mass index — but a new study shows that it can also depend on your doctor’s.

Physicians who were overweight or obese were far less likely to diagnose obese patients than physicians at a more normal weight, according to research published this month in the journal Obesity.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore surveyed 500 primary care physicians nationwide in early 2011 and found that doctors with a normal BMI, below 25, treated their patients very differently than did doctors with a BMI of 25 or higher.

Normal-BMI doctors were more likely to talk to their obese patients about weight loss (30% versus 18%). They were also more likely to give advice on diet (53% versus 37%) and exercise (56% versus 38%).

In one of the most stunning figures in the paper, however, the probability that a normal-weight doctor actually recording an obesity diagnosis for an obese patient was 93%. For overweight or obese doctors, it was just 7%.

Interestingly, the gap seemed to narrow a bit when physicians were asked whether they thought patients would be less likely to trust weight loss advice from an overweight or obese doctors. An overwhelming 80% of normal-BMI doctors agreed, but so did a very respectable 69% of overweight and obese doctors.

The likelihood that a physician would diagnose a patient as obese or talk to them about weight loss was higher, the researchers wrote, “when the physicians’ perception of the patients’ body weight met or exceeded their own personal body weight.”

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-doctor-obesity-bmi-20120126,0,3655197.story

Kaiser Permanente Southern California Invests More Than $7 Million to Fight Obesity Targeting Fitness and Better Nutrition in Low-Income Areas

fightapiobesity — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:00:56 +0000

PASADENA, Calif., Jan 25, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Six Southern California communities have each received a $1 million grant from Kaiser Permanente Southern California to encourage people in these HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Living) Zones, to eat better and become more physically active as part of daily life.

A HEAL Zone is a small community of 10,000 to 20,000 residents with high obesity rates. The six communities that have been awarded a total of $6 million in grants over the next three years and nine months include Anaheim in Orange County, north Long Beach in Los Angeles County, Ontario in San Bernardino County, Lemon Grove in San Diego County, West Ventura in Ventura County, and East Riverside in Riverside County.

Obesity is a national epidemic. In California, one in every nine children, one in three teenagers, and more than half of adults are obese or overweight. “We need to make changes where people live, work, and play. Otherwise, we will continue to see obesity rates rise and we’ll be treating more children and adults with chronic and debilitating diseases that often result from obesity, such as diabetes and heart disease,” said David Cuan, MD, assistant chief of pediatrics, Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center. “Healthy Eating Active Living Zones demonstrate Kaiser Permanente’s commitment to total health of the individual and the communities we serve.”

HEAL Zones in Southern California have three specific goals:

– Decrease calorie consumption

– Increase consumption of healthy food and beverages such as fruits and vegetables and drinking water

– Increase physical activity

The HEAL Zones have parks, stores, and schools that are being targeted for change so that people living in these low-income communities can more easily engage in healthy behaviors and make healthy choices. The vision of the HEAL Zones is to transform these communities so that walking and biking on safe routes, buying affordable fresh fruits and vegetables close to home, exercising in clean and safe parks, and participating in active after-school programs all become a part of a resident’s daily life.

“We are thrilled to receive this funding from Kaiser Permanente. It will allow us to build on our efforts to fight obesity in Long Beach. We look forward to the expertise and continued long-term support that our partners at Kaiser Permanente will provide to us as a part of this initiative,” said Shawna Stevens, spokesperson for the Long Beach HEAL Zone initiative.

HEAL Zones include a coalition of partners such as local public agencies, schools, community-based organizations, local businesses, faith-based organizations, and health care providers committed to fighting obesity and preventing diseases.

The six HEAL Zone grant recipients in Southern California are:

– Anaheim Family YMCA, Orange County

– City of Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, Los Angeles County

– City of Ontario, San Bernardino County

– Community Health Improvement Partners, San Diego County

– County of Ventura Public Health, Ventura County

– Riverside County Department of Public Health, Riverside County

In addition to the six HEAL Zones, Kaiser Permanente is also awarding $650,000 in partnership grants to Antelope Valley ($300,000), Whittier communities ($300,000) in Los Angeles County, and Kern County ($50,000) to combat obesity. Additional funding will be dedicated to technical and evaluation support over the next three years.

The HEAL Zones are a continuation of Kaiser Permanente’s HEAL program which began in 2004 to address obesity and related health conditions. Since then, Kaiser Permanente will have committed more than $21 million in HEAL efforts across Southern California.

About Kaiser Permanente’s Community Benefit Program

Kaiser Permanente’s Community Benefit program is committed to improving the health of the communities we serve and reducing health disparities through community partnerships with the safety net of community clinics, public health departments, public hospitals, and other agencies. Community Benefit also helps increase access to quality health care and coverage, regardless of income, through our charity care and charitable coverage programs; supports community groups to inspire people to make positive changes for health through our Health Eating Active Living programs and Community Health Initiatives; and shares our medical knowledge, expertise, and research to help Southern California people live healthier lives. For more info, visit Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit.

About Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high quality, affordable health care services to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 3.5 million members in Southern California. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: www.kp.org/newscenter .

SOURCE: Kaiser Permanente

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kaiser-permanente-southern-california-invests-more-than-7-million-to-fight-obesity-2012-01-25

Learning to be lean

fightapiobesity — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:00:46 +0000

As one of the many outgrowths of the sweeping federal health care law, health insurers and employers must now pay the cost of screening children for obesityand providing them with appropriate counseling.

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Stew Milne for The New York Times

Ryan May weighing in Elijah Byers, 8, at a weight loss program in Rhode Island.

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Stew Milne for The New York Times

Ryan May meeting with overweight children at the YMCA of Greater Providence.

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With about one in three children in the United States obese or overweight, according to government statistics, the need for such programs is clear. But, experts say, creating them will be challenging. Other than intensive hospital-based programs, few proven models exist for helping children and adolescents achieve and maintain a healthier weight, and researchers do not even fully understand the factors that contributed to the rapid rise in childhood obesity in recent years. “If this were easy, if there were clear outcomes for success, we would be investing in these,” said Dr. Samuel R. Nussbaum, the chief medical officer for WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurers.

While there are many community efforts aimed at getting every child to eat better and exercise more, including Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative, there is also growing demand for programs that help children who are already seriously overweight. WellPoint and the UnitedHealth Group, another large insurer, are experimenting with new approaches, and even Weight Watchers says it is working to develop a program for children and teenagers. Drug companies and medical device makers are also testing some products on children.

Adults have a difficult enough time losing weight, and the issues are even more complicated with children and teenagers, experts say. Children are still growing, and the goal of any program may be to help them grow into a healthier weight rather than to actually lose pounds. Experts also say that to be successful, programs need to focus on the family as a whole, changing what everybody eats and how much time they are all active, not sitting in front of a computer screen or television.

UnitedHealth’s pilot program, aimed at these family dynamics, was conducted in partnership with the YMCA of the USA and the YMCA of Greater Providence, R.I. The sessions at the Y, with young children or teenagers talking about their struggles with food and exercise, are intended to be a friendlier, more cost-effective alternative to hospital programs.

Accompanied by a parent, the children meet for 16 hourlong sessions, initially once a week. Led by a coordinator who has been trained at a Y or other community setting, the children and parents learn about what foods they should favor, why children may be overeating and how to balance what they eat with how active they are.

In Rhode Island, parents like Dana Morel said the program was appealing because there were few other options. “There really wasn’t anything like this,” said Ms. Morel, who enrolled her son, Ryan, after hearing about it from her local Y. “That’s why we jumped on this.”

Ryan, now 11, said he was initially reluctant to go to the meetings but was won over by the woman leading the group and the promise of $150 in gift cards if he filled out the paperwork (The use of gift cards was limited to the study.)

Ryan, who weighed 122 pounds, lost 30 of them as he learned to make better choices about what he ate and to recognize that he sometimes ate because he was bored. He learned to limit his portions and substitute turkey burgers for cheeseburgers.

Already active in sports like soccer, the leaner Ryan said he has become a better player. “I’m faster,” he said. “I don’t lose my breath as quickly. I can run.”

The early results of UnitedHealth’s efforts are promising, according to the insurer, which said that 84 percent of the 155 children and teenagers completed the program and had an average 3.5 percent reduction in weight after six months. Parents also lost weight, according to UnitedHealth. The insurer says it is expanding the program, even as it continues to study its longer-term impact.

Raytheon, a military contractor, started offering the sessions to its employees in Massachusetts and Rhode Island as part of a pilot program. “We are always seeking out innovative ways to help our employees and their families live healthy lifestyles,” Keith J. Peden, a Raytheon executive, said in a statement.

UnitedHealth is now working with Texas and Louisiana to offer a similar program this year for children enrolled in Medicaid under the insurer’s Medicaid plans.

“There’s not a lot of programs, especially programs that children are interested in participating in,” said Dr. Rodney Wise, the medical director for Louisiana’s Medicaid program. The state, which suffers from one of the country’s highest rates of obesity, is asking all the health plans serving Medicaid to address the problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/health/learning-to-be-lean.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=reedabelson

National Wear Red Day® is Friday, February 3, 2012

fightapiobesity — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:11:42 +0000

According to the American heart Association (AHA) more women die of heart disease than all forms of cancer combined. You can help stop the No.1 killer of women by sharing the truth and participate the NATIONAL WEAR RED DAY. Show the world that you support the fight against heart disease in women. Wear red on Friday and encourage the people in your life to do the same.“Going Red” is as easy as putting on a red dress, a red tie or a red dress pin. Just Wear Red to show your support…

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the facts are clear. More women die of heart disease than all forms of cancer combined. Unfortunately, the killer isn’t as easy to see. Heart disease is often silent, hidden and misunderstood.

The AHA also says that you can help stop the No. 1 killer of women by sharing the truth and participating in National Wear Red Day, Friday, Feb. 3, in the following ways: