Tagged With "Health and Well-Being"
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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How Nutrition Affects Teens Mental Health
"Once we've sourced our food, the next step is preparing it. This part of the process can also be an avenue for enhancing teen mental health – particularly when young people approach cooking as a creative activity that they enjoy doing with and for others. A recent study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology followed more than 650 young adults. Each day, they reported how much time they spent on creative activities and how they felt that day. The researchers found that the...
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How One Farm Saved This Tiny Town’s Survival Rate (rd.com)
By the summer of 2005, the Reverend Richard Joyner of Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church realized he was conducting funerals twice a month—a startling number given his town’s tiny population. Nearly 300 souls call Conetoe (pronounced “ka-‘nee-ta”) home. The predominantly African American hamlet is situated in North Carolina’s Edgecombe County, where a quarter of households live below the poverty line and heart disease kills more
20- to 39-year-olds than do car accidents. “I’ve closed...
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My life as a public health crisis
A young, well-meaning film maker I recently met is doing a documentary on food justice efforts around the country. Great idea. The big problem was his title: it referred to food insecure places as "wastelands." I often talk to people who care about the epidemic of unhealthy and overweight children. But they talk about it as if they and their parents don't know better or don't care. And that their communities are not rich in traditions, love, caring, or knowledge. This essay talks about how...
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NATIONAL EATING DISORDERS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES NEW LEGISLATION FOR EATING DISORDERS PREVENTION AND ASSESSMENT FOR ALL BODY SIZES
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/national-eating-disorders-association-announces-new-legislation-eating-disorders-prevention-and
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Parent Handouts updated and available In Dari, English & Spanish
The updated parent handouts are now available in Spanish as well as English and Dari. Here's the blog post with links to all three versions of each flyer. All versions of the Understanding ACEs and Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs parent handouts can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. Both flyers were made with generous support from Family Hui, a Program of Lead for Tomorrow, who is responsible for making the Spanish and Dari translations available. These are updates of the...
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Parenting and Nourishment: an important read
Addressing children's nutritional well-being in a trauma-informed way has to include this conversation: “[E]xperts say a lack of time is no excuse [for not cooking],” but the authors believe that when such messages inevitably prove impossible to live up to, mothers bear the brunt of blame for everything from their child’s obesity to their own food insecurity. What will take some of this pressure off moms—and bring us closer to a more just and healthy food system for all? The authors offer...
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"Prescribing" Fresh Produce Could Save $100 Billion in Healthcare Costs [CWA Flash E Newsletter]
A new study from Tufts University finds "prescriptions" for healthy foods could save more than $100 billion in healthcare costs and prevent millions of cases of chronic diseases , which account for roughly 86 percent of annual healthcare costs in the United States. The study followed adults between the ages of 35-80 who were enrolled in Medicare and/or Medicaid. It placed participants into two groups : one in which Medicare/Medicaid covered the cost of 30% of fruits and vegetables, the other...
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Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness [California Community Colleges]
Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness March 7, 2019 Sacramento — More than half the students attending a California community college have trouble affording balanced meals or worry about running out of food, and nearly 1 in 5 are either homeless or do not have a stable place to live, according to a survey released today. Click HERE to read the press release and click HERE...
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Replacing vacant lots with green spaces eases depression
This NPR story shares recently released study supporting what we know in our bones: humans thrive with connection to nature. Read more here: Replacing vacant lots with green spaces eases depression . This study is hot off the press: " Effect of Greening Vacant Land on Mental Health of Community-Dwelling Adults: A cluster randomized trial. " "The impact was strongest for residents of poorer neighborhoods — they showed at least a 27.5 percent reduction in the prevalence of depression." "The...
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School district looks to head in healthier direction (smdp.com)
The Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District agreed to move forward on a revision to its food and nutrition program at a June 14 board meeting, allocating money to improve Malibu HS and Samohi kitchens as well as offering more food and food purchasing options for students. To increase participation and revenue, the program proposed many options: freshly preparing meals at revamped Samohi and Malibu High School kitchens (an estimated $700k cost to replace kitchen equipment) to be...
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School district turns unused cafeteria food into frozen, take-home meals for kids [KCTV 5]
(Meredith) – A school district in Indiana is working to provide take-home meals for students in need to ensure they have enough food to eat over the weekends. Elkhart Community Schools teamed up with a non-profit group called Cultivate to create a pilot program that will provide weekend meals for a small group of children at Woodland Elementary, WSBT reported. The district's goal is to expand the program to feed more students in neighboring schools. As part of the pilot program, 20 kids will...
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Stress Eating is Life-Affirming and Can Help Us Cope in Troubled Times
https://medium.com/@lucy.aphramor/stress-eating-is-life-affirming-and-can-help-us-cope-in-troubled-times-4a798adf1b73
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Study Analyzes Adolescents' Reactions to Weight-related Terms Used by their Parents
Conversations about weight can be particularly challenging for parents with adolescent kids, and insight into the characteristics of parent-adolescent communication about body weight is limited. Published in Childhood Obesity, this study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity interviewed 148 adolescents enrolled in a weight loss camp, asking them what words their parents typically use to talk about their weight, how those words make them feel, and what words they would most want...
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Things We Don't Say When We Talk About Weight Loss [medium.com]
For the past few months, my body has been too heavy to measure. Well, too heavy to weigh on my home scale. It has a 400-pound weight limit. When I first began my own writing career last spring, my weight was ranging anywhere from 340 to 375 pounds, but swinging upwards. At some point, I gave up completely and saw my weight reach 400 pounds last fall. Obviously, that's a huge number. I know, some of you are laughing or rolling your eyes. Some of you want to vomit. Meanwhile, I have intense,...
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What Children understand about Food Insecurity
https://civileats.com/2018/03/26/what-children-understand-about-food-insecurity/
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Why Nutritional Psychiatry Is The Future of Mental Health Treatment (theconversation.com)
The link between poor mental health and nutritional deficiencies has long been recognized by nutritionists working in the complementary health sector. However, psychiatrists are only now becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of using nutritional approaches to mental health.
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Re: Why We Need to Talk About Trauma in Public Health Nutrition [lucyaphramor.com]
Tina- How couragous of you to speak about housing to doctors. So often they don't want to acknowlegde the impact it has on outcome as well as cause. Sorry about your brother.
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Re: Why We Need to Talk About Trauma in Public Health Nutrition [lucyaphramor.com]
Well written article and fantastic articulation of the approach around trauma and dietary consumption and consultation. There are many great points to this article and is a sector that needs to be crucially explored. Pointing out in addition to these strong points, the importance of exploring the types of foods we consume and the scientific insight of its impact on our physiological health, emotional regulation, and behaviour change. As similar to therapeutic context of defining trauma,...
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Re: Can What We Eat Affect How We Feel?
Thanks for your comment Linda. It always shocks me, even though I shouldn't b shocked, at how medical protocols fail to consider nutritional health.
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Re: This is How Dutch Kids Enjoy and Learn from Keeping Vegetable Gardens (brightvibes.com)
I was so interested in this subject that i felt compelled to respond. sorry for its length...A few years ago i managed a family service in a most disadvantaged community in Kent. The families that i supported came from an array of chaotic backgrounds and traumatic experiences that initially our community service mirrored that of a war zone. The rates of families on CP and CHIN were alarming. i spent most of my days stopping fights breaking out, and arguments NOT with children, but their...
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Re: Childhood Trauma Can Impact Our Gut Bacteria
"The children with a history of early caregiving disruptions had distinctly different gut microbiomes from those raised with biological caregivers from birth. Brain scans of all the children also showed that brain activity patterns were correlated with certain bacteria. For example, the children raised by parents had increased gut microbiome diversity, which is linked to the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain known to help regulate emotions." Food and nutrition is such an important...
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Re: Eating Kale May Help Older Adults Slow The Decline In Cognitive Skills (scienceblog.com)
Concurring with you Monica on one single food, although the article has kale in the title, please know the research was on green leafy vegetables. A plant-based diet is so tremendously beneficial, especially when we can eat vegetables (and fruit) grown organically. Impressed with Tufts Human Research Center on Aging, please find more information on a well-balanced diet for older adults. http://hnrca.tufts.edu/myplate...ults/fruits-veggies/ Here's a graphic from Tufts for consideration also.
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Re: Eating Certain Raw Fruits and Vegetables Has Been Linked to Better Mental Health [metro.co.uk/]
This is an important disclaimer from the article: "Obviously, this study isn’t claiming a cause-and-effect link between what you eat and your mental health status. Depression can’t be caused by a lack of vitamins or cured by a surplus. It simply says that there’s an association between what we eat and how we feel." However, I would love to see more research in this area. Original research paper found here .
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Re: Eating Certain Raw Fruits and Vegetables Has Been Linked to Better Mental Health [metro.co.uk/]
Of course. I don't believe there are panaceas or "miracle cures" for anything that ails us. I do believe that every little bit that we can do to improve our health matters, though, including eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. That alone won't cure depression, but it can play a big part along with other lifestyle changes and treatments.
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Re: Conversation with Ijeoma Oluo about body size, relationship to food, and growing up food insecure
Great post!! so much great info in this post. Thank you for sharing Monica! Love the social justice perspective. Wonderful resources too.
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Re: Stress Eating is Life-Affirming and Can Help Us Cope in Troubled Times
I always love reading your perspective Lucy, thank you for this thought provoking article!