Chronic Disease

As schools across the country step up efforts to provide more nutritious foods to all children, they’re also focusing on ways get them interested in trying them. And it can be particularly important for kids from low-income families, who often lack access to nutritious food at home.

Tiffany Krastins stopped receiving food stamp benefits this past September. But with a family of six, money is still tight. “Eight-hundred dollars a month to feed six people, it breaks down to about $1.53 per meal,” she says.

“Dollars that were intended for a wide array of medical services started being gobbled up by just one drug,” said Charles Bacchi, president of an industry trade group.

According to the Maine Children’s Alliance, 30 percent of Maine kids ages 10-17 are overweight. That’s more than 36,000 kids, and nearly half of those are considered obese. And children from low-income families are especially vulnerable.

Zika virus has been generating a lot of news lately. But the reports haven't always been accurate. Dr. Seema Yasmin offers a quick primer and dispels a couple of myths for reporters filing stories on the epidemic as it spreads through the Americas.

This week brought news of a compromise in the battle over new school lunch standards. It comes quick on the heels of new research that questions critics' claims of tossed food and lost revenues.

KCRW reporter Avishay Artsy set out to report on ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes. After originally planning on covering three groups, he found he was able to tell more compelling stories by narrowing his focus to African-Americans and colon cancer.

Like many streets in Houston’s Greater Fifth Ward, Worms Street offers the perfect environment for the spread of tropical diseases. Many of these infections aren’t new, but rising temperatures and poverty create a perfect storm for their spread.

It's tempting to assume that another article on smoking's harms would be a non-story. But while smoking rates among African Americans are lower than national levels, this ethnic group continues to suffer disproportionately from chronic, preventable diseases caused by smoking.

Victims of childhood sexual abuse are far more likely to become obese adults. New research shows that early trauma is so damaging that it can disrupt a person’s entire psychology and metabolism.