Home Disadvantage - where you live affects your health

A small Seattle community battles health disparities that disproportionately affect the poor and people of color.   |   Laura T. Coffey | March 30, 2011

In the absence of a major supermarket, three corner markets along South Park's main drag sell cigarettes, beer, wine, chips, candy, sugary cereals, and Hungry-Man TV dinners. Two of the three stores don't have produce sections at all. One of them, South Park Grocery, has large Camel cigarette ads on the floor directly in front of the candy selections.

Antoinette Angulo, a health-education program manager with Sea Mar Community Health Centers, which provides five clinics for low-income South Park residents, says uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes is widespread among clinic patients. Worse yet, adults with diabetes here and in nearby Georgetown are more likely to die from the disease or related conditions than are adults in neighboring communities.

"There's absolutely a food desert here," Angulo says. "The whole environment is set up to make it the hardest choice possible for people to eat healthy."

The American Prospect

FRESH, a Film Screening & Panel Discussion

"If Food Inc. was your wake up call, Fresh, The Movie is your call to action"--Vanessa Barrington of ecosalon.com

Come learn about the changes you can make in the local food movement while supporting Seattle's own Danny Woo Children's Garden! The evening features an exclusive screening of FRESH, a film focused on celebrating the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system.

Join us for a prescreening reception in the lobby where you can meet our resident chickens, learn about worm bin maintenance, enter to win some amazing raffle prizes and bid on spectacular auction items from local Seattle businesses! Doors open at 6:30PM, screening begins at 7PM with a panel discussion to follow.

Movie begins promptly at 7:00PM
Event location: Grand Illusion Cinema (in Seattle's U-District) 1403 NE 50th St.

Ticket price: $15 (www.brownpapertickets.com/event/158448) Seating is limited, buy your tickets NOW!

Let's Walk Seattle!

On April 6, join Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine with the American Heart Association to promote health and wellness.   Click for event details.

Get great kid-friendly fitness tips during a live one-hour web chat

Exercise physiologist & and registered dietitian Felicia Stoler on ways fitness can combat childhood obesity

Monday, March 7 at 11 a.m. PST

View/Participate here

Childhood obesity is a hot topic, but what can parents to do help their children get in shape? Get great kid-friendly fitness tips during a live one-hour web chat on Monday, March 7th at 11 a.m. with Felicia Stoler. Stoler is an exercise physiologist and registered dietitian and the author of "Living Skinny in Fat Genes: The Healthy Way to Lose Weight and Feel Great." Stoler also hosted the TLC show "Honey, We're Killing the Kids!"

Enter your email for a live-chat reminder.

Can't make the chat? Email your questions in advance to chat moderator Jeannine Stein at jeannine.stein@latimes.com.

Let's Move news

Medical Students Support ‘Let’s Move’ Campaign to Fight Childhood Obesity

Michelle Obama, Officials Announce Increased School Meal Efforts

Shushing the first lady.

National Let's Move flash mob(-ish). 

An impressive new study was released in the American Journal of Public Health linking television viewing to childhood obesity.

Welcome Binghamton!

Is there a "pro-obesity" camp?

WASHINGTON — Former first ladies Barbara and Laura Bush worked to end illiteracy. Nancy Reagan famously took on teenage drug use. Lady Bird Johnson planted flowers. But none of them has been seared for something as seemingly benign as calling for kids to eat more vegetables, as Michelle Obama has.

Just about everyone will agree that the nation's children are getting fatter and that obesity is a serious health problem. But the first lady's push for healthier meals and more exercise, which marked its anniversary this month, has provoked a backlash from the right, who complain that the only thing here that's supersized is Big Brother.

Let's Move in the news

How to Build a Walking School Bus Program from Grass Roots Up

Best Practices in Design, Implementation and Dissemination

In 2005, the PedNet Coalition of Columbia, Missouri, tried something new. Four parents, whose kids attended different elementary schools, each agreed to recruit four or five other families in their neighborhoods, create a weekly parent rotation, and walk the kids 1-2 miles to school every day for four weeks. These were Columbia's first Walking School Buses.

Now, six years later, the program has grown to include eleven elementary schools, more than 120 trained volunteers, and 450 registered children. During that time, Ian Thomas, creator of the program and PedNet's Executive Director, has encountered and surmounted most of the challenges and barriers to building a sustainable Walking School Bus program: how to recruit volunteers, whether to do background checks, most effective ways to market the program, building community buy-in, addressing liability concerns, and turning programmatic success into policy change.

During this one hour webinar, in addition to sharing these best practices, Dr. Thomas will describe a promising strategy for effectively and inexpensively establishing programs in new communities.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011
10:00am – 11:00 am Pacific time zone
Register now: http://bit.ly/fFciXE

Childhood obesity linked to neighborhood social and economic status

Seattle—Children in King County, Washington, are more likely to be obese if they live in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods. This is according to a team of researchers at Seattle Children's Research Institute, the University of Washington (UW), and Group Health Research Institute. Social Science & Medicine e-published the research this week in advance of printing it.

“Children are raised not only at home but also in their community." ~ lead author H. Mollie Greves Grow, MD MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics, UW, Seattle Children's, and Harborview Medical Center.

“Childhood obesity is not just a family problem, but a larger community and societal problem,” Dr. Grow added. “A disadvantaged environment can set families up for ill health, and it’s unfair to blame them for not taking enough ‘personal responsibility’ to manage their weight. We don’t yet know all of the factors that may create disadvantage, but we know it is present and associated with higher obesity.”

(June 11, 2010) More...

Rising obesity rates are dangerous for adults and children

In King County, nearly one in three children in middle and high school is overweight or obese and that number is growing. About 55% of King County adults are either overweight or obese (2009). These rates are even higher in low income communities and communities of color, an outcome largely due to the poor relative health of the communities that these populations reside in. 

Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death. Being overweight or obese leads to many health problems, such as Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, “adult” diseases now affecting children.

Sugar-sweetened  beverages are a major contributor to obesity and poor health

Children who drink two or more sugar-sweetened beverages a day are more likely to be overweight than those who consume healthier alternatives such as milk or water.Enough with the scary headlines...join our campaign and help end childhood obesity within a generation.

Let's Move Seattle!

Calling all volunteers!  Please sign up TODAY at:  http://tinyurl.com/LetsMoveSeattle

Nudging Grocery Shoppers Toward Healthy Food

Some grocery stores are using the same sensory marketing tricks to change people's buying habits that big food companies and restaurants have used for years. These new marketing tools can also promote public health. 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131074210

Serve milk and water rather than sugar-sweetened beverages

For families with milk allergies, you can make a rich and creamy alternative milk with raw almonds and a good blender. Here's how:

All-Natural Almond Milk

• 1 1/2 cups of raw almonds, soaked in water overnight
• 4 cups of filtered or spring water
• 3-5 dates (optional)

Blend 1 ½ cups of raw almonds that have been soaked overnight in 4 cups of water. Blend with dates if you like your milk with a hint of sweetness. Strain once to remove almond granules. The result is a delicious, creamy milk that is free of harmful vegetable oil, concentrated sweeteners, and the problems associated with cow’s milk and soy. It can be stored safely for 3-4 days in the refrigerator.

Skinfully Delicious
Sure, sweets for your sweetie are guaranteed to brighten up his or her Valentines Day. But did you know that one treat can brighten up his or her skin? Researchers in Germany say that chocolate increases protection from UV damage. In addition chocolate dilates blood vessels, which increases blood flow and brings nutrients to the surface and deep layer of the skin. Researchers have also found that chocolate promotes skin hydration, thickness, smoothness. 
Antioxidants known as flavanols are primarily responsible for chocolates skin-beautifying benefits. To obtain sufficient flavanols, most experts recommend consuming only very dark chocolate with at least 70% cacao.

(Optimum Wellness January 2011: 28)

We're on Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/events/seattle-lets-move-seattle-volunteer-training

New guidelines would make school lunches healthier

By MARY CLARE JALONICK - ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Schoolchildren would have to hold the fries — and pick up more whole grains, fruits and vegetables — on the lunch line under proposed new federal standards for school lunches.

The Agriculture Department proposal applies to lunches subsidized by the federal government and would be the first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in 15 years. It is expected to be announced Thursday.

The guidelines, (http://www.usda.gov/documents/cnr_chart.pdf) which were obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by USDA, would require schools to cut sodium in those meals by more than half, use more whole grains and serve low fat milk.

"The United States is facing an obesity epidemic and the crisis of poor diets threatens the future of our children and our nation," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

More...http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_healthier_school_lunches.html

What's in YOUR machine?

There are vending machines in every corner of Seattle.  Snacks and refreshments easily available for us and children when we need a quick bite to eat.  So the question is...what's in YOUR machine?

Look around.  Your school, gym, museum, hospital, shopping center, you name it.  Where are the vending machines and what does it serve?

We're interested and we know others in Seattle are too.  Send your machine sightings to: LetsMoveSeattle@gmail.com OR http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-Move-Seattle

So "Let's Move Seattle" and tell us what you find.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker on the "Let's Move" initiative

And so now I begin.

Michelle Obama asked me in 2010 to be an Honorary Co-Vice Chair of the Partnership for a Healthier America as part of her larger national campaign against obesity called Let’s Move! I proudly and readily accepted, and loudly began to preach of the grave ills of our nation’s obesity epidemic.

Newark mayor Cory Booker using Facebook to lose weight

amfix.blogs.cnn.com

During 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama invited Newark mayor Cory Booker to be an Honorary Co-Vice Chair of her "Partnership for a Healthier America" as part of her larger national campaign against obesity called Let's Move!.

Beating the scary statistics

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 68 percent of us are overweight or obese.  http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/archives/234283.asp

Here in Seattle we're working to reduce the rates of childhood obesity in our community.  With just a few small changes we can positively impact the health of our children.  Please join us next Tuesday:  http://tinyurl.com/LetsMoveSeattle

New Year Resolution STATUS UPDATE

Many of us make resolutions about our health.  This year I'm tracking mine. (Yikes!)

MOVE

I need a lot of motivation and I love toys.  I downloaded a tool for my phone to track my excercise from www.handylogs.com.  The site has logs for diet, money, heart and sugar health.  It travels with me to record what I'm doing on-the-go. The app and registration (to sync your phone to the website) is FREE.

Another free phone application I downloaded for the new year is www.iMapMyRun.com  What I like about this app is that it uses my phone's GPS to track my pace, speed and mila...um distance.  I'll let you know when I start logging miles.  ;)

RECHARGE

I've heard that eating right after a work out is good for your metabolism.  After holidays filled with cookies, rich breads, cakes and nog I toned it down a notch and served up apples, peanut butter and hot coca made with coconut milk (the kind made for drinking, not the decadent canned version), molasses and chocolate baking power.  The jury is still out as I can taste more molasses than chocolate.  It's not bad, it just tastes different than hot cocoa.

I drank over 4 cups of water at the gym (my water bottle, refilled once) so the hot coca was a reward.

Check out http://www.snack-girl.com/ for new snack ideas.

Sending you best wishes for the New Year!

Inside the laboratory

Visit the Nutrient Data Laboratory, type in your food item and get all the stats on what you're eating! http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

Our 1st Volunteer Training

Our 1st Volunteer Training

No easy access to fresh groceries in many parts of Seattle

Thursday, May 1, 2008

By JENNIFER LANGSTON
P-I REPORTER

With two new supermarkets anchoring planned condo buildings, industry standards would say West Seattle has reached a saturation point for grocery stores.

Tell that to Maggieh Rathbun. To buy fresh food, the carless Delridge resident has to spend hours on the bus or climb hills as steep as ski jumps.

It's easier to find fried chicken gizzards than a piece of fruit in the quickie marts lining the 3-mile Delridge Way corridor.

That's one of many Seattle neighborhoods that University of Washington researchers found have no access to a grocery store within a 30-minute bus ride. In wealthier single-family areas, such as west Ballard or along Lake Washington, walking to buy food often isn't easy.

"No Easy Access" article