There is a growing understanding that improving student health isn't just about serving healthier foods – it’s also about promoting healthier lifestyles. Reducing junk food marketing to children is a key part of that task, and San Francisco Unified has been at the leading edge of such efforts.
Kids in poorer families eat more fast food more than their peers, right? Not necessarily, as new data from the CDC show. The idea that poverty status isn't directly correlated with fast food intake may be heartening, but it doesn't mean low-income kids are consuming equally nutritious food.
There can be no discussion of Indian culture without dedicating a portion of the topic to food. The country has a culinary history and lifestyle as diverse as it is rich. Does Indian food, however, come with a price?
For many contemporary Native American communities, accessing healthy food in any form is a challenge. While the federal government offers some assistance, it's often not enough. For my fellowship project, I'll investigate what resources tribes are using – or not – to address food insecurity.
The East End community in Lexington, Kentucky has long had its struggles. Nearly two decades ago, officials unveiled major new plans to revamp a neighborhood suffering from high crime, housing shortages, poor schools and other urban ills. But the plan didn't go as expected. What happened?
A cluster of serious birth defects in central Washington state has led health officials on a search for the cause. Experts believe a lack of folic acid may be partly to blame, but efforts to fortify common Hispanic foods such as corn masa have languished. Fellow JoNel Aleccia investigates.
In Maine, one in three children are overweight, and about half of poor children ages 10 to 17 are obese. Programs such as "Let's Go!" have tried to combat the trends by spreading messages of healthy eating and exercise, but widespread problems persist. Why the impasse?
On Tuesday, the FDA announced that it will require the food industry to eliminate the use of artificial trans fats by 2018. Does that mean trans fats will soon disappear completely? Not quite. Here are five things to watch for as the FDA’s new ruling rolls out.
Requiring certain ingredients to be listed on food labels can often drive larger changes in what we consume. The U.S. required trans fats to appear on food labels in 2006, but countries such as Brazil and Argentina have gone much further in setting limits on the unhealthy fats.
Why have policies limiting the prevalence of trans fats been so slow to arrive? A brief history explains how policy actions aimed at curbing such fats, now known for their role in chronic diseases, ultimately gained traction in tip-of-the-spear countries such as Denmark.
