Tagged With "”"
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10 Stories of Transition in the US: Transition Milwaukee and the Victory Garden Initiative (transistionus.org)
The following story is the seventh installment in a new series we’re calling "10 Stories of Transition in the US." Throughout 2018, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Transition Movement here in the United States, we will explore 10 diverse and resilient Transition projects from all over the country, in the hope that they will inspire you to take similar actions in your local community. During the first two world wars, governments in the US, Europe, and Australia promoted the...
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34 Affirmations for Healthy Living (dailygood.org)
Try positive self-talk to eat better, feel stronger, and rejuvenate your body. When day-to-day life seems to revolve around providing for others, we can forget to nourish our own bodies and spirits. And yet, self-care is what empowers us to give back to the world, fully and joyfully. Start your practice by taking just a few moments each day to affirm your commitment to eat well and live a healthful life. Each bite of food contains the life of the sun and the earth. The whole universe is in a...
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A dietitian's guide to raising a body-positive child. (ksl.com)
Preschool and elementary-age children are more dissatisfied with their bodies than ever before, according to one study . Girls as young as 3 already perceive heaviness as “bad” and thinness as “good,” and more than a third of 5-year-old girls restrict their eating in order to stay thin. So, let’s remember the goal as parents: raise resilient kids in a thin-obsessed culture. Your kids will have negative thoughts about their bodies. Our goal isn’t to prevent that; it’s to help them be...
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A Different Kind of Food Trauma - Surviving Meanness
It is traumatic when your family does not share the food they have. Not because it is in short supply rather it is done out of meanness of spirit. However, as a child, you conclude you are not good enough, you do not belong. It is painful to be excluded.
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Access to Food Stamps Improves Children’s Health and Reduces Medical Spending [poverty.ucdavis.edu]
The Food Stamp Program (FSP, known since 2008 as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is one of the largest safety-net programs in the United States. It is especially important for families with children. However, the FSP eligibility of documented immigrants has shifted on multiple occasions in recent decades. When I studied the health outcomes of children in documented immigrant families affected by such shifts between 1996 and 2003, I found that just one extra year of...
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After WIC Offered Better Food Options, Maternal And Infant Health Improved (scienceblog.com)
A major 2009 revision to a federal nutrition program for low-income pregnant women and children improved recipients’ health on several key measures, researchers at UC San Francisco have found. The study is the first to analyze the health effects of the changes to the U.S. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which serves half of all infants and more than a quarter of all pregnant and postpartum women in the U.S. It comes amid renewed attention to poor...
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Being Black in America Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
Kiarra’s struggles with her weight are imbued with this sense, that getting thin is a mystery she might never solve, that diet secrets are literally secret. On a Sunday, she might diligently make a meal plan for the week, only to find herself reaching for Popeyes fried chicken by Wednesday. She blames herself for her poor health—as do many of the people I met in her community, where obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are ubiquitous. They said they’d made bad choices. They used food, and...
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Beyond Pantries: This Food Bank Invests In The Local Community (Rochester, NY)
Great article from NPR last year ( August 1, 2017 ) about Rochester, NY, food bank Foodlink's partnership with their local school district to provide locally grown slice apples for school lunches. by ANYA SACHAROW Wayne County, New York, is the biggest producer of apples in the Empire State. Yet, in 2013 public school children in the county were being served apples from Washington on their lunch trays. At the end of the lunch period, the lovely, whole Washington apples ended up mostly...
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Biomarkers for Diabetes May Differ Based on Childhood Experiences [Diabetes In Control]
MIDUS study looks at individual adverse childhood experiences and their impacts on future diabetes. An adverse childhood experience (ACE) is any experience that produces long-lasting stress in a child’s life and leads to worse overall health, both psychological and physical as an adult. Research has shown that even a single ACE increases the risk of diabetes, but little is known about the mechanism behind this phenomenon or how to prevent its occurrence. Currently the CDC only recommends...
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Bringing meals to people with food insecurity may deliver savings to the healthcare system [latimes.com]
Imagine you are the tightfisted potentate of a small republic, plotting the least expensive way to care for subjects in fragile health who depend on your beneficence. You could watch while your subjects who are elderly or disabled (or both) scramble to find and pay for healthy meals. And you could open your checkbook each time one of these subjects lapses into a health crisis that calls for a trip to a hospital's emergency department in an ambulance. But you might just try feeding these...
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Can What We Eat Affect How We Feel?
I think it is important to tread carefully around using food to address mood disorders. However, a balanced diet is important for much more than weight management. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/well/eat/food-mood-depression-anxiety-nutrition-psychiatry.html?action=click&module=Editors+Picks&pgtype=Homepage&fbclid=IwAR2JhXu7b7TZ-_cM-v-Txpx5Z5bnad1p3-ZOWskI4MpCtj3a55BGu0VjMHI
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Check Your Privilege Before Talking About Obesity and Personal Responsibility
"The longer public health and public opinion focus their attentions on the personal-responsibility narrative of obesity and other chronic non-communicable diseases, the longer we'll wait to see population level changes. " https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/articles/2016-09-27/check-your-privilege-before-talking-about-obesity-and-personal-responsibility
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Childhood Trauma Can Impact Our Gut Bacteria
Scientific links between adversity and gut health. Is there an opportunity for nutrition to play a role? https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/childhood-trauma-can-impact-our-gut-bacteria-317561?fbclid=IwAR08DGFCEftxoJhC7JOZZ4MNvlsOLNYg3TeLV-2i-AykvIhEJgWNfttWqMw
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Churches Own Thousands of Acres of Land Across the U.S., and Some See That as an Opportunities for Farming Projects to Help Students and Families (NationSwell.com)
Over the past decade, there has been a push for ecological conservation within the Christian faith , motivated by concerns over how climate change might impact human welfare. That movement has coincided with an uptick in the number of faith-based farms , many of which equate divinity with sweat equity and its bountiful results. Where those two movements intersect sits Plainsong Farm & Ministry , a community-supported agriculture farm and ministry, located outside of Rockford, Michigan.
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City (San Diego) Accepting Applications for Urban Agriculature Incentive Zones
Two years ago, the San Diego City Council unanimously approved my Urban Agricultural Incentive Zone Proposal. The program helps expand community access to fresh produce through a property tax incentive for qualifying land owners who allow urban gardens on their property. There’s a new website for the program (listed below). Applications and an interactive map highlighting eligible lots are available for the public to view. The program gives communities throughout the City an economic tool to...
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College Students, Seniors and Immigrants Miss Out on Food Stamps. Here's Why. [calmatters.org]
By Jackie Botts and Felicia Mello, Cal Matters, November 6, 2019 A college student in Fresno who struggles with hunger has applied for food stamps three times. Another student, who is homeless in Sacramento, has applied twice. Each time, they were denied. A 61-year-old in-home caretaker in Oakland was cut off from food stamps last year when her paperwork got lost. Out of work, she can’t afford groceries. While picking up a monthly box of free food, a 62-year-old senior in San Diego told...
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Conversation with Ijeoma Oluo about body size, relationship to food, and growing up food insecure
A great discussion with writer and activist Ijeoma Oluo among other things: Ijeoma’s relationship with food growing up, including her experience with food insecurity The issues with food access for low-income people Food hoarding as a response to deprivation The impact of sexual assault on our eating behaviors The invisibility of fat bodies and the privileges of thin bodies The myth that weight loss is the cure to all ills Size discrimination Systemic injustice The impact of weight loss...
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Cooking with Kids: A Recipe for Family Bonding (stresshealth.org)
One of the best ways to get kids excited about good food is to get them into the kitchen. Besides the fun of making a meal, you’ll be cooking up some family togetherness. This is especially important if kids have experienced trauma or adversity, which increases the risk of anxiety and depression. Not only does nutritious food lower that risk, but cooking it together provides a sense of connection and belonging. It’s especially powerful when making a beloved dish passed down through...
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Culinary Medicine: How Therapists are Using the Rituals of Eating to Heal Trauma
https://newfoodeconomy.org/culinary-meal-as-medicine-mindful-eating-trauma-anxiety-disorder/
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Detroit Entrepreneurs Fight Food Insecurity With Lessons Of The Past
This is an excellent example of using trauma-informed principles to shape a nutrition security initiative. Community voice, empowerment, and peer leadership are essential aspects of trauma-informed services and programs. It also pays attention to food quality, the store experience, and racial equity--things that are often missing from efforts to address food insecurity. ...
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Diet and Depression
The new study adds to a growing body of research that supports the connection between diet and mental health. "We have a highly consistent and extensive evidence base from around the globe linking healthier diets to reduced depression risk," says Felice Jacka , a professor of nutritional and epidemiological psychiatry at Deakin University's Food & Mood Centre in Australia. ...
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Drexel research links racism and hunger [thecourierexpress.com]
New research out of Drexel University finds that racism can be a catalyst for food insecurity. Released Monday by the school’s Center for Hunger Free Communities, the report shows that people who experienced discrimination firsthand struggled with hunger twice as often as others. When — or where — that discrimination occurred didn’t matter. However, food insecurity was more likely the more someone had experienced racism. [For more on this story by Aaron Moselle, go to...
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Dysfunctional Eating May be Rooted in Early Life Experiences [psychcentral.com]
By Traci Pedersen, PsychCentral, September 20, 2019 Dysfunctional eating habits in overweight and obese adults may be deeply rooted in one’s personality traits due to early life experiences, according to a new study published in the journal Heliyon. As a result, weight loss interventions like surgery and cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) might not be enough to guarantee long-term success. “While the biological and environmental causes of obesity are well known, psychological determinants that...
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Eat, Eat, Eat: Forced to overeat as a child, Sharon Suh finally learns for herself what is enough
A rich and powerful accounting of how the author's relationship to food developed through the lens of family adversity. "My struggle to feel my body and to discern whether I am hungry or full began quite young. I grew up in the 1970s, a second-generation Korean American in New York with a mentally ill mother who suffered from anorexia and bulimia. Throughout my formative years, she projected her body dysmorphia onto me, shaming me for my weight and my Asian features. I was never allowed to...
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Eating Certain Raw Fruits and Vegetables Has Been Linked to Better Mental Health [metro.co.uk/]
Raw fruits and vegetables may play a role in improving mental health, according to a new study by the University of Otago. Researchers have found that people who eat more uncooked produce tend to have fewer symptoms of depression and other mental illness, compared to those who eat cooked, canned or processed versions. More than 400 people aged between 18 and 25 were asked about their typical consumption of fruit and vegetables, including which varieties they ate and how they were prepared.
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Eating Kale May Help Older Adults Slow The Decline In Cognitive Skills (scienceblog.com)
A recent study found that consumption of green leafy vegetables may help slow the decline in cognitive abilities—or brain function—in older adults. The study by researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts found that those who ate about one-and-a-half servings of green leafy vegetables per day had the cognitive functioning of people roughly eleven years younger than those who ate little or no leafy greens. The finding is striking given that...
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Epigentic Research: Trauma and Nutrition
https://conscienhealth.org/2018/12/inheritance-of-trauma/
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Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong
This article blew me away... " Which brings us to one of the largest gaps between science and practice in our own time. Years from now, we will look back in horror at the counterproductive ways we addressed the obesity epidemic and the barbaric ways we treated fat people—long after we knew there was a better path. ....... 'A lot of my job is helping people heal from the trauma of interacting with the medical system,' says Ginette Lenham, a counselor who specializes in obesity. The rest of...
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Family Resiliency and Childhood Obesity
Abstract Background: Traditional research primarily details child obesity from a risk perspective. Risk factors are disproportionately higher in children raised in poverty, thus negatively influencing the weight status of low-income children. Borrowing from the field of family studies, the concept of family resiliency might provide a unique perspective for discussions regarding childhood obesity, by helping to identify mediating or moderating protective mechanisms that are present within the...
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Farm to Hospital Bed: This Hospital Uses it's Roof to Feed Thousands (nationswell.com)
When Boston Medical Center needed a way for patients to access healthy, fresh food, it turned to its roof. The hospital’s 2,658-square-foot rooftop farm grows fresh produce for its food-insecure patients. These patients are referred to the Boston Medical Center’s Preventative Food Pantry . There, they gain access to over 25 crops and can take home fresh food for their entire household every two weeks. “The Preventive Food Pantry helps fill the gap for those who would otherwise be unable to...
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Feeding San Diego Announces Free New Technology Platform to Reduce Food Waste (livewellsd.org)
On November 5, 2019, Feeding San Diego , announced the launch of MealConnect TM in San Diego County. This free and innovative technology platform connects surplus food from restaurants and other food service providers to Feeding San Diego’s volunteer drivers and agency partners. Developed by Feeding America, MealConnect is an exciting new way for the community to divert good food from going to waste and increase the availability of nutritious food for the one in eight people facing hunger in...
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Food Aid and Nutrition Education for women reducing rates of domestic violence
What do food insecurity, nutrition, and domestic violence have to do with each other? A study on reducing domestic violence, came out of a study on nutrition in Bangladesh, run by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Did women who were given food (or cash to buy food) improve their household's health when they were also educated on healthy diets? Yes! But the women's status also were improved. This article is not solely about nutrition and food but empowerment of women,...
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‘Food for Thought’ teaches cooking skills (nashuatelegraph.com)
Cius and Sako sauteed garlic, wilted spinach and mixed ricotta for baked ziti Thursday afternoon, as the Family and Consumer Sciences classroom filled with the chocolatey aroma of the brownies they had made earlier. They are just two of the students who have participated in Food for Thought, a program teacher Kate Paraggio started at the school last year “in an effort to provide a positive and empowering experience for students,” an explanation of the program said. “Middle school is a...
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Food insecurity can lead to family violence, new UTSA study says
https://www.ksat.com/education/new-utsa-study-links-food-insecurity-to-family-violence?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar link to the journal article mentioned in above article: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1090198118760683?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed&
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Food Insecurity may be Keeping College Students from Graduating
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/04/03/599198739/food-housing-insecurity-may-be-keeping-college-students-from-graduating
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Food Prescription to Treat (Mental) Illness [NPR]
One man's story of improving his mental and physical health with careful use of nutrition. https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2019/06/04/future-of-food-as-medicine?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR00KriXrmSj1Q8Hb0eGYA8mIxwUR4t7AKmOwRcuBencwLfE_hFaIf7Cm_A
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For Many Widows, the Hardest Part Is Mealtime
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/dining/widows-cooking-grief.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
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Four Ways to Nourish Happiness with Mindful Eating (mindful.org)
When we tap into feelings of joy and happiness in good moments — like savoring delicious food — it helps us build resilience and emotional strength during challenging times. Everyone wants to be happy. The desire is part of our biology and hard-wired into our brain. But the reason why happiness arises is varied and complex. Many people think that you find happiness; however, happiness isn’t a thing, so it is never lost. Happiness is an experience, and the conditions for you to have the...
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From Gut to Brain – The Inflammation-Depression Connection (wakeup-world.com)
Psychiatry has known about the role of the immune system in certain presentations of depression for the better part of the last century, and more recently, pioneering thinkers like Maes , Raison, and Miller have written about the role of altered immune set points and inflammation in models of depression. Our immune systems are largely housed in the gut and the interplay between the gut and the brain is a complex and profoundly important relationship to appreciate. How Does Inflammation...
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Fruit And Vegetable Prescriptions Encourage Children To Eat Healthy (scienceblog.com)
A new study shows that a fruit and vegetable prescription program can improve access to healthy foods for underserved children. The program, which was implemented in Flint, Michigan, could be replicated in other areas to address food insecurity in children. In August 2015, the Hurley Children’s Center – Sumathi Mukkamala Children’s Center, a residency training pediatric clinic associated with the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, relocated to the second floor of the...
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Grants Available for Policy and Advocacy Efforts Aimed at Native Nutrition and Health
First Nations Development Institute ( First Nations ) is accepting grant proposals through a new effort known as the Fertile Ground Advocacy Campaign under its Native Agriculture and Food Systems Initiative, or NAFSI. First Nations will award up to five grants of $75,000 to $100,000 each to support Native American-led efforts aimed at advancing new policies and innovative policymaking approaches that benefit Native American nutrition and health. These can involve efforts to improve access to...
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Grateful Changemakers: Karma Kitchen (dailygood.org)
Imagine a restaurant where there are no prices on the menu and where the check reads $0.00 with only this footnote: “Your meal was a gift from someone who came before you. To keep the chain of gifts alive, we invite you to pay it forward for those who dine after you.” This restaurant exists, and it’s called Karma Kitchen, a self-described “volunteer-driven experiment in generosity.” Karma Kitchen was first opened in Berkeley, California in 2007 by volunteers inspired to seed the value of a...
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Gut Health and PTSD study
More research on diet, gut health, and PTSD. " Johns Hopkins Medicine says that keeping the gut healthy is an important part of overall health. One suggested way to maintain intestinal health is by eating enough fiber, sticking with a diet including plenty of fruits and vegetables." https://www.newsweek.com/gut-instinct-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-may-related-gut-bacteria-scientific-study-says-1467372?fbclid=IwAR1UeHlYKfcuXvrRtJmC2iDQ3yR2O2r2q1b_ddEU2bmamDgrGT73I_z7YIM
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Gut Instincts: Researchers Discover First Clues On How Gut Health Influences Brain Health (scienceblog.com)
New cellular and molecular processes underlying communication between gut microbes and brain cells have been described for the first time by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell’s Ithaca campus. “Our study provides new insight into the mechanisms of how the gut and brain communicate at the molecular level,” said co-senior author Dr. David Artis , director of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease , director of the Friedman Center for Nutrition and...
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Health at Every Size
Linda Bacon, author of Health of Every Size speaks wisely about health, nutrition, social context, well-being and resilience. She says: optimizing diet is not the answer for good health . The podcast discusses: Her relationship to food in childhood, including her firsthand experiences of pursuing weight loss to gain social acceptance How diets and exercise regimens generally stop yielding weight-loss results after a certain amount of time All the ways in which our bodies fight weight loss...
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Healthy Eating Research: Building Evidence to Promote Health and Well-Being Among Children (Call for Proposals 2018)
Purpose Healthy Eating Research (HER) is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) national program, which supports research on policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies with strong potential to promote the health and well-being of children at a population level. Specifically, HER aims to help all children achieve optimal nutrition and a healthy weight. HER grantmaking focuses on children and adolescents from birth to 18, and their families, with a priority on lower-income and racial...
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Healthy Eating Research (funding opportunity - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
Good nutrition is important to health at every stage of life. But often people from lower-income communities and communities of color lack access to healthy, affordable foods and beverages and the opportunity to make healthy choices. As a result, low-income families are disproportionately impacted by higher rates of obesity and other poor health outcomes. There are many factors that contribute to this inequity in access to nutritious food items and the ability to make healthy choices,...
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Hot Chips
"Every time, hot chips. Whenever she walks into my room, she acts panicked: “Do you have my hot chips?” But what I hear is, Did you remember me? Do I matter? Do you care?" https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/2460/hot-chips/f9ed6a09-9e88-4291-bc2e-b4b1b08acb18/OIM?fbclid=IwAR0wgKxkPIYvDpeQL3pCz6hCghpl5PZ0b8Jy2x_KjzxamVpifsbM_14Ou2o
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How a federal free meal program affected school poverty stats [hechingerreport.org]
In 2014, schools had a new way to give students free breakfast and lunch, paid for by Uncle Sam. Instead of asking low-income families to apply for the meals, a school district could opt to give everyone free food if at least 40 percent of the student population was already on other forms of public assistance or fell into a needy category, such as being homeless or in foster care. This new “ community eligibility ” option was a policy change by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which...