The study included 598 adults who were surveyed at the ages of 24 and 27; almost 400 had taken part in the Seattle Social Development Project during elementary school, while the rest had not. The program trained teachers in classroom management, offered parents classes in encouraging positive behavior and helping their children with schoolwork, and gave children lessons in getting along with their peers and controlling their own behavior. The goal was help children excel at school and cut their risk of drug use, early pregnancy and getting involved in crime. Researchers found that students who had gone through the program were, in general, doing better than their peers at the age of 27.
School vending machines and cafeterias in Colorado will by June 2009 no longer sell soda or other sugary soft drinks under regulations approved by the Colorado Board of Education. High school students will still be allowed to buy low-calorie sport drinks. But board members specifically barred diet soda. “If we allowed diet soda, kids get in the habit of drinking soda,” said board member Evie Hudak.
Eating lots of protein and cereal grains causes excess acid production in the body, experts say, which could increase calcium excretion and result in weakened bones. However, a new study finds that boosting alkali levels with a pill or by consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables can strengthen bones.
Public Health Law & Policy
Dec 13
The Public Health Institute is an independent nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California. It works to help build the capacity of advocates, local public health and planning departments, schools, government attorneys, elected officials, and others to advance their public health goals through policy change — for example, by limiting “junk food” marketing aimed at children, protecting people from secondhand smoke, or making healthy foods and physical activity more accessible.
NPLAN
Dec 13
The National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN) provides leaders in the childhood obesity prevention field with focused legal research, model policies, fact sheets, toolkits, training and technical assistance to explain legal issues related to public health. Our goal is to help create strong childhood obesity policy interventions that will reverse the epidemic by 2015.
School Health Law
Dec 13
The School Health Law Project is a program in the Public Health Law & Policy unit at the Public Health Institute. The Public Health Institute is an independent nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California. This is their website on Promoting access to nutritious foods/beverages and physical activity in public schools and reducing or eliminate the advertising of non-nutritious foods/beverages on school campuses.
Planning for Healthy Places
Dec 13
Planning for Healthy Places is a program in the Public Health Law & Policy unit at the Public Health Institute. The Public Health Institute is an independent nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California. This is their website on community planning solutions to increase access to healthy foods and physical activity through improvements to the built environment.
A good warm-up program may dramatically reduce sports injuries, a new report from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences found. Focusing on strength improvement, balance, core stability and muscular awareness cut injuries by a third among almost 1,900 teenage female football players; severe injuries fell by almost half.
Weight-loss programs that reward people with money — and remind them of the cash they stand to lose if they fail — provided a powerful incentive to lose weight compared with more conventional approaches, said Dr. Kevin Volpp of the University of Pennsylvania.
Buffet behavior studied
Dec 13
Brian Wansink from Cornell observed 213 randomly-selected patrons of 11 all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets across the United States. Heavier patrons were more likely to: Face the buffet while eating. Begin serving themselves immediately instead of surveying the buffet. Pick up a larger plate vs. a smaller one. Use a fork instead of chopsticks. Leave less food leftover on their plate and Chew fewer times per bite. Find the original article here: http://the-f-word.org/blogfiles/ChineseBuffetStudy.pdf