- Author: Chris M. Webb
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources researchers and educators continue to fight increases in childhood obesity rates. Childhood obesity is linked to many lifelong health problems. If left unchecked these problems have the potential to reverse life expectancy gains.
Our youth deserve a future filled with promise and possibilities. A strong body and good health is the foundation on which a successful future can be built.
UC ANR’s new after-school curriculum is designed to help 9- to 12-year-olds develop good health skills that will last a lifetime. The six-week hands-on program promotes preparing and eating healthy meals as well as encouraging plenty of physical activity. Healthy eating and physical activity work...
- Author: Iqbal Pittalwala
One morning more than a decade ago I tried an “eating meditation” in Silverlake, about an hour’s drive from UC Riverside. We were about ten people – more Buddhish than Buddhist – in a dark and quiet room, seated on stiff chairs around a menacing-looking table. Each of us was handed a strawberry and told to await instructions.
I had never participated in an eating meditation before. I wasn’t even sure what was involved. Did one eat and eat, and meditate at the same time with eyes closed? I had tried two other kinds of meditation before – sitting and walking meditations. A meditation focused on food intrigued me, and it was simple curiosity that motivated me to try it out.
The...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension has found a health and fitness formula that works. Combining fun exercise and nutrition classes for kids with special sessions for parents melts away pounds and inches.
The concept was proven successful at a day camp offered by the City of Fresno Parks and Recreation and Fresno County UC Cooperative Extension this summer. About 90 overweight or obese children were recruited to participate in the six-week program at Ted C. Wills Community Center and Holmes Playground. Their parents attended two mandatory evening meetings a week.
In all, the campers lost 241 pounds. More significantly, a combined 253 centimeters was erased from the children’s waistlines. The number of pounds lost is skewed...
- Author: Ann Brody Guy
I recently switched from a small group practice to Kaiser when the rates for my old healthcare plan went up. My first visit to my new doctor was like something out of a happy-healthcare utopia: a farmer’s market out front hawked fresh peaches and plums; bright light streamed through tall windows as I found my way to a well-marked suite; a receptionist cheerily informed me there was no copay for this welcome visit.
But in my brief stay in the waiting room, I noticed there was an entire row of oversized chairs. And when I was ushered to the scale, in place of the typical stand with little black weights I found what can only be described as a freight scale — a large electronic platform at least 3 feet x 3 feet, built right into the...
- Author: Sylvia Wright
UC Davis professor Adela de la Torre, a national expert on Chicano and Latino health issues, received a five-year, $4.8 million federal grant to discover the best ways to help Mexican-heritage children in California maintain healthy weights.
The study, called "Niños Sanos, Familia Sana" (Healthy Children, Healthy Family), will take place in the Central Valley towns of Firebaugh and San Joaquin.
“More than four in every 10 children born to parents of Mexican heritage are overweight or obese, and therefore at greater risk of early diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease,” said de la Torre. “We are fortunate...