Upgraded Playgrounds Could Make a Difference
“Our fitter kids are the envy of the planet.” That statement is quite a brag, a real attention-getter, and the title of a piece by Emma Palmer. Let’s see how they back it up. And who are they, anyway? They are the schools of South West Essex, formerly known as the Kingdom of Essex, now […]
Food Addiction Recovery: Great Blogs
The Guide to Culinary Schools is a clearinghouse of vital information for professionals and students designed to connect people with schools and courses, and vice versa. And it offers some great value-added supplementary material, such as its list of 50 top blogs about overcoming food addiction. This page is not just a perfunctory copy of […]
The Edible Schoolyard
We talked about garden-based nutrition education, also known as garden-based learning, or GBL. We made connections between the benefits that kids derive from GBL, and the ways in which children can avoid falling prey to a crippling dependency on hedonic foodstuffs. The Edible Schoolyard is based on the garden-based learning philosophy. It’s in Berkeley, California, […]
Don’t Just Stand There — Grow Something! Part 2
We have been looking at some ideas about kids and gardening, schools, and childhood obesity, and the relationships between them. Many people are upset about school lunches, which sometimes involve such undesirable elements as vending machines, fast-food franchises, and microwaved meals. No one would deny that kids need to eat fresh vegetables and fruit, even […]
Don’t Just Stand There — Grow Something! Part 1
Way back in 1959, almost no one (except its inhabitants) spared a thought for Harlem, the festering black ghetto of New York City. Warren Miller’s novel The Cool World was startlingly different. A 14-year-old gang member gets into serious trouble and is sent upstate to Juvenile Hall. For the first time in his blighted young […]
Breastfeeding, Health, and Childhood Obesity
New research comes along every day, and breastfeeding is currently a topic of much concern (we have been exploring some of its angles on this blog). The latest interesting findings come from the Colorado School of Public Health, reported on for BusinessWeek by Robert Preidt. It’s one of those “bad news, good news” scenarios. The […]
The Many Voices in a Breastfeeding Debate
The Let’s Move! program and First Lady Michelle Obama have plenty of ideas about ending childhood obesity, and one of them is the importance of breastfeeding. Yesterday we brought up some of the problems encountered by the FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States.) The public may experience either strong feelings or ambivalence, both of […]
A Tale of Two Michelles
It has been a little over a year since the Let’s Move! campaign, initiated by First Lady Michelle Obama, got off the ground. So far, the reviews are mixed. Some critics ignore the fact that childhood obesity is a huge problem, which has gained enormous momentum over a long period of years. Even the best […]
Liz Snyder and the Life-Changing Day
Know any “Moms of the Revolution”? Well, you do now: Liz Snyder, who was awarded that title by Kiwi Magazine because of her Full Circle Farm project, which is organic, sustainable, and educational. Also very educational is Collective Roots, a nonprofit organization that teaches kids in East Palo Alto, California, to grow food, and, more […]
The Cookie Monster Controversy – Where Do You Stand?
Somewhere in the mid-2000s, a disturbance was caused in American culture when a Sesame Street character, Cookie Monster, became aware of the childhood obesity epidemic. Famous for his exclusive preference for cookies, he switched gears and began eating other foods as well. His new message was: “Cookies are a sometimes food.” He made public service […]