Group B Progress on Healthy Bodega Initiative

Last week we revisited the two bodegas, but we did not take pictures because the owners were not there. However, we took note of the lunch menu offered in one of the bodegas and thought of how it can be changed. We are working on creating fliers, using the tips and methods from last week’s presentation, to address the obesity issue. We are also making a flier to promote the bodega, so when we negotiate with the owners, we show them evidence of how we will help them. Finally, we plan on taking photos during our next visit to the stores.

Update from Group A-Bodega Initiative

Our survey has been approved, so we can move ahead with surveying and after this weeks presentations, we can really start canvassing the campus to make them aware of our project!!! Yay!

Filming will take place during the break as well as a lot of the interaction between the bodega(s) of choice.

Stay tuned...

STATE OF THE PLANET 2010

Guys, there is this live conference currently going on in Columbia University. Its a global discussion on current state of planet earth, and experts are joining from China, UK, Kenya and India. This is a chance to hear these experts put their arguments regarding climate change issues and discuss their proposed recommendations for policies. If you get a chance, please do visit the webcast STATE OF THE PLANET 2010.

Famers Market Group/ Just Food organization

So I spoke to Abby Youngblood from Just Food organization. She told me that a cooking demo is definitely possible in our college. Abby sent me an email with a request form for us to fill out in which we can provide our contact information. The request takes about 3 weeks, therefore if we want the cooking demo around April 22, we should send her the form back as soon as possible. She also told me that the fee for the cooking demo is around 200.00 for a two hour cooking demo. For that amount of time they can give food samples to about 100 people. I think the price is very decent, and if any other group is interested in having them, maybe we should all make one request form. We can request them for 2 or three different cooking demos. Maybe one demo for the bodegas, one for the farmers market, and one for the college cafeteria. However this is all up to Olivia and Jyoti because only they know our project budget. Hopefully tomorrow we can talk a bit more about this.

Health Care Bill Now a LAW

Today, the health care bill was signed in by President Obama as a law. In the bill is a provision for menu labelling of calories right next to the item being sold. The bill will apply to:
1. restaurants [with 20 or more franchises] under FDA regulations
2. foods sold in vending machines

Some foods will be exempt [such as specials being offered less than 60 days on the menu]

Luckily, NY was the first state to pass a calorie count on menus & now customers nationwide will get the opportunity to think twice before choosing a meal.

Stellars Framers Market

Hey Goodnight,

This is some information that I obtained about the Stellars Farmers Market.

It is a program run by the Healths Department's Physical Activity and Nutrition Program.

The Stellars Farmers market programs are held at different farmers markets in New York City.

Each workshop has nutritional information for families, cooking demonstrations using local/ seasonal produce, and there are recipe tastings !!! Each of the participants receive free recipes and free gifts.

This sounds like a great promotional idea for our Farmers Market.


This website offers free simple and easy recipes from apple pancakes to mango chutney. The Just Say Yes to Fruits and Vegetables works in conjugation with the Stellars program. Here is the link to free recipes:
http://www.jsyfruitveggies.org/

Here is a link to the Stellar's Market Pogram : www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/.../healthbucks_stellar.pdf


Enjoy!!!

Update on the Farmers Market Group

Last week our group received the revised surveys and we are planning to hand them out to the people campus as well as the community. Here is a copy of our survey:

Our group's plan so far is to organize a mini event with fruit cart vendors, posters, pamphlets, cooking demos, music in order to help promote the farmers market and sign petitions. All of this we are aiming towards the month of April. In order to help with the cooking demos and the promotion of the farmers market event we will be contacting East Harlem District Health Office regarding the Help Bucks and also Just Food, Stellar's Farmers Market and Nourishing Kitchens of America in order to request free demos of food recipes at our location of the farmer market possibly.

If you guys have the time, please answer our surveys as well! It will be greatly appreciated!

Progess On Healthy Bodega Initiative Group B

Last week our group visited two bodegas and made a chart of the healthy stuff they carried and the possible changes that could be made. We also made a survey of about 5 questions for the owner to answer; the questions were to know more of what people buy more, in the deli and outside the deli. Also if we saw that they did not carry something that we thought to be helpful in fighting obesity, like 1 of the stores we went to did not have fat free milk and we wanted to know why they did not sell it. We also asked the owners how much they were willing to help in this project and if they were willing to make small changes to improve health and they thought this was a very good project and they were willing to make some changes. Next week we plan to visit the bodegas again, we want to take pictures and also talk to them if they are willing to have a cooking demo to promote healthier sandwiches to community and campus. Our group wants to do 2 bodegas, in one we want to make healthier the deli options since they carried healthy food options and in the other for the owner to stock more healthy food since she did not have fat free milk. Jyoti is this fine, or do you think that we should do more than 2?

Join AMP UP & CCNY GREEN

The Summit will bring together students from all over NYC to meet one another, share project ideas, collaborate with others and prepare for Earth Day. They will be focusing on bringing students the information & skills needed to take action on some of the environmental issues facing us today. Please come out and show your support!!!

Update from Healthy Bodega Initiative – Group A

We have made a lot of progress in the last week or so. We have completed a survey of our focus area – 135^th Street to 145^th Street from Amsterdam to St. Nicholas – and mapped out all of the bodegas.

We have also drafted two surveys – one for bodega owners to find out what kinds of healthy foods and/or lunch specials they would be willing to carry in their stores and one for neighborhood residents to find out what kinds of healthy foods and/or lunch specials they would be willing to buy from a neighborhood bodega. We have plans to meet with several bodega owners next week.

Finally, we are planning to shoot a brief movie about the bodegas in our target area and have already begun shooting footage. We plan to post the video on YouTube and use it as a way to promote the bodegas that we end up working with on this initiative.

Update on Campus Group:Interview with Manager Joe

1) Do you eat the food you sell? Why or Why not?
- Yes I do, I am here from morning to afternoon and these are what available for me to eat. I am a very picky eater but I feel that the café has a variety of options to choose from. Large percentage of the salad bar, hot food which has at least one healthy option a day, and everything is made fresh from the kitchen nothing is processed.

2) If there were a farmers market near campus, would you be willing to work with them to bring fresh produce to the cafeteria?
- I would be willing to work with them, but fresh fruits and vegetables are delivered to the café every day. We get new fresh good vegetables every single day. But with Farmers market we would have to compare with what they give and the prices and what we get now. If it can work we would definitely go for it.

3) Would you be willing to implement some healthier cooking options like baking instead of frying?
- We bake, grill, broil, fry, steam, and etc. Frying is not our only way of cooking in the cafeteria, we do it all.

4) Will you be willing to exchange the sugary drinks in vending machines with lower sugar content juices and water?
- Has no problem as long as it is a Pepsi product. Pepsi has a contract with the school and the café and we use their products. So whatever they provide we sell.

5) Which sections of foods make the most money?
- The most popular is the grill station. The salad bar has some sort of popularity and so does the pizza and deli station.

6) If CCNY students voted on Healthier options would you implement what they voted on into the menu?
- Any request given for the menu has always been considered. Once a couple of students request it, we try it out and if it works we keep it going. Some students requested vegetarian options and on a daily basis we sell tofu and mashed vegetables and etc.

7) Would you be willing to make the healthy foods a reasonable price?
- No one bought the organic options items we used to have in the café because they felt it was too expensive, hence why they are no longer in the café. But we go by what price they give us. Organic food on a whole is expensive so it will be difficult to sell expensive food for cheap.


8) Food cart in front of the cafeteria with little packages of fruits, nuts, cheese and bread would be a nice suggestion don’t you think?
- I don’t think it’s necessary seeing that we had a grab and go section right in front of the café. We have packaged foods in the fridge that students use to just grab and go. Everything like stands, vending machines, and etc goes by traffic flow and clearance. School is paying someone to be at a station so if they are not selling or that vending machine is not selling it will be removed. But if the café would benefit from one being in front of the cafeteria outside, it wouldn’t be a problem.

*side note*
Vending machines in the towers consist of yogurt, granola bars, nuts, orange juice, and etc. One was in Shepherd but because no one purchased from there and everything expired it was removed. He told us we can keep in contact with him and if we find a space in Grove Engineering Building he will look into placing a healthy vending machine in there, so right now that’s our goal!!!!

Susheian Update

Hello Guys,
This week I worked with Michael Hernendez on getting intouch with a nutritionist from the CUNY graduate center who is currently working on an anti-diabetes campaign here on campus. I will be working with her to get information on what type of foods to put in the campus group's food cart and what type of nutritional information the rest of the group will need in creating their lunch menu and/or initiating the green markets.

A survey coming soon from the Farmers Market Group

After hearing about the approval of from the community board regarding the approval of the farmers market, we now have a location. Our potential location would be the small little park in the middle by the one train which is between 136th and 138th street on Amsterdam Avenue. As a group, we are all very excited!

In our last class, Olivia provided a list of potential survey questions that we would be using to get more information on the community. We stayed a few minutes after class in order to revise some of these potential questions to help better suit our needs. We also decided that with this list of questions, it would also be best if we translated to Spanish as well in order to better accommodate the people in the Harlem community.

Snacks mean U.S. kids moving toward "constant eating"

A very interesting article on childhood obesity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100302/hl_nm/us_obesity_children_usa

Update on CAMPUS GROUP

We are going to interview the cafeteria manager Joe Gallopini on Wed. March 17, 2010. After the interview we will be able to know if we could work with him or not, because he is very difficult to convince. We came up with these questions to ask him:

1. Do you eat the food you sell? Why or Why not?

2. If there was a farmer’s market near campus, would you be willing to work with them to bring fresh produce to the cafeteria?

3. Would you be willing to implement some healthier cooking options like baking instead of frying?

4. Will you be willing to exchange the sugary drinks in vending machines with lower sugar content juices and water?

5. Which section of foods makes the most money?
6. If CCNY students voted on Healthier options would you implement what they voted on into the menu?
7. Would you be willing to make the healthy foods a reasonable price?
8. Food Cart in front of the cafeteria, little packages with fruits, nuts cheese and bread.

Germs can make you Obese!

In NEW YORK LIBERTY STAR newspaper, an article entitled, "Could Germs Be Making You Fat?" talks about a recent research that took place in Washington, D.C. about how Germs can start growing in the gut of a human being that may cause obesity. These germs can also cause other health-threatening symptoms that go along with being obese. How these germs can make you obese is by making you eat more than you can actually eat everyday. it's quite interesting that germs can also make you fat if you do not keep your self clean and free of germs. Moreover scientists have found that an average person carries about 5 pounds (2 kg) of bacteria in the gut. Scientists also reported in the journal of Nature that they found 1,000 different species of bacteria in human intestines. Wow, that many germs!! thats surprising. I guess, from now onwards we should keep ourselves as tidy as possible.
link: article can be found by goggling the newspaper and it was Friday, march 5th when it came out.

Start Fitness Program at CCNY

American Heart Association Start! Fitness Program



The American Heart Association's Start! Fitness Program

(http://startwalkingnow.org/) is a comprehensive exercise, nutrition and

lifestyle altering initiative that was designed to promote healthy living.

Hundreds of educational institutes, their students, staff and employees have

reaped its quality-of-life promoting benefits and now the Start! program has

been brought to the CCNY Campus.



The Office of Athletics and Recreation, in conjunction with the Division of

Student Affairs, will be holding a brief meeting next Thursday 3/18 at

5:15pm to provide all prospective participants with all of the necessary

information to successfully benefit from this program.



Questions can be directed to gneary@ccny.cuny.edu or
via telephone at Ext. 7551.

Halotherapy

I recently saw this & found it rather interesting on the news about an age old therapy known as halotherapy (or salt tharapy). Apparently people suffering from asthma, skin problems, bronchitis, allergies and much more respiratory problems can sit in what is known as a salt room or salt cave for a certain period of time and inhale the salt aerosols. The negative ions of the salt particles help to clear the body of mucus & even purify the lungs. There are currently locations around NYC that offer the therapy for those of you suffering from any respiratory problems. Here's a website for those of you that wish to read more on this: http://www.saltcave.us/halotherapy.html

Packaging linked to obesity

Researchers found children in New York's East Harlem are three times more likely than other children in the US to be overweight, and they said that high levels of the packaging chemicals found in the children's urine may play a role in obesity by disrupting hormones that regulate growth and development.
The full article could be read at:


http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Studies-link-packaging-chemical-to-childhood-obesity

Update on Campus Group

We spoke to Michael and his co-worker from Healthy Monday on Monday. They told us what different projects they are involved with and about the different changes that they want to bring to the campus. They also told us we should get involved with the wellness center because they also working on bring healthier food to the cafeteria as well as other clubs who are working to bring something healthy to the campus and the cafeteria. We as a group decided that we should first interview the manger of the cafeteria, Joe Gallopini. We will interview him on Thursday from 1-2, after the interview we will know what to do next.

Soda Tax gains momentum

We already know that addressing the obesity epidemic would be good for the economy because it would lower health care costs, but Mayor Bloomberg is approaching the problem from a whole new angle. He has long advocated for a tax on soda - to generate revenue for the city and reduce consumption of the drinks.

According to the New York Times, the mayor started advocating the soda tax again as a way to close the state budget gap on his Sunday radio show. He said, “In these tough economic times, easy fixes to our problems are hard to come by,” he said. “But the soda tax is a fix that just makes sense. It would save lives. It would cut rising health care costs. And it would keep thousands of teachers and nurses where they belong: in the classrooms and clinics.”

The soda companies will surely do all they can to prevent this tax from becoming reality, but it would go along way in keeping New York functioning and reducing obesity rates. I hope it passes.

Woman Who Drink Gain Less

Yes, the title is just shocking, isn't. Do you believe it?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/women-drinkers-gain-less-weight/

aolhealth Tweets

This is an article about scientists that are trying to "print" organs for people in need. I saw a segmnt on this on the discovery channel a while ago and was wondering about their progress. Now, scientists from around the globe are going to be working together to make this a reality. So people who need an organ donation don't have worry that their body will reject the organ and they won't have to wait long to find a proper donor.

Heres the link:


aolhealth Tweets

The Healthy Bodegas Initiative: An Interview With Donya Williams, program coordinator

Hey Guys,

This is an interview with the program coordinator of HBI of the NYC department of health and Mental Hygiene which can give us useful tips. Also here she states "We need volunteers, yes. We encourage everyone to become unofficial members of the Healthy Bodegas initiative and there are opportunities to volunteer with us." We could use this and tell bodega owners to establish our credibility. obviously letting them know that we are not there to report anything.

http://www.foodsystemsnyc.org/healthy+bodega+initiative+interview

Farmers Market Progress

Hi

This may help people who have to write about the pros and cons for the Greenmarkets or Farmers Markets. (pg 13)

The rest of the article is research on Farmers markets and how much people from low income homes use it. They also show that with advertising that they got more low income people to use their EBT cards at Farmers Markets.

Heres the link: http://council.nyc.gov/downloads/pdf/farmers_mkt_progress_rpt_09.pdf

GREEN MARKETS/ FARMERS MARKETS GROUP

Here is an update on what we are planning to do so far!

We have divided into 3 smaller groups amongst ourselves. These groups are the following: green market, farmer market and the community board. Within these groups we are doing further research on our topics of green market and farmer's market. And then we are going to regroup and basically compare and contrast the disadvantages and advantages of the green market and farmers market idea and then we will basically start from there and decide how we would go about promoting this task! We will also being doing a price comparison within the supermarkets, green markets and farmers market because each of the three areas have very different prices. The community board was suppose to draft a letter to the community board of Harlem, however, since we heard the news from Olivia that the farmer's market idea has been approved (what a relief!) we no longer have to persuade the community board but we have to persuade the public!

New York Stories | Columbia News

New York Stories Columbia News

Campus Group

1) 1) These are the stakeholders that we came up with:

· Future students in this class

· CCNY student body

· Health and Wellness Center

· Organizations that provide food to the cafeteria

2) 2) Who are the people we will reach out for:

· Manager of our cafeteria

· Members of Healthy Monday workshop

· Students coming in and out of the cafeteria.

3) 3) Some questions we decided for the manager were:

· What types of food do you more often get from the organizations?

· Which organizations deliver food to the cafeteria?

· Etc. (we have to think about more Q’s)

In Obesity Epidemic, What’s One Cookie?

An article from the New York Times addressing the fact that the little changes we make may not necessarily help us in the long run with dieting to lose weight.

Author: TARA PARKER-POPE

The basic formula for gaining and losing weight is well known: a pound of fat equals 3,500 calories.

That simple equation has fueled the widely accepted notion that weight loss does not require daunting lifestyle changes but “small changes that add up,” as the first lady, Michelle Obama, put it last month in announcing a national plan to counter childhood obesity.

In this view, cutting out or burning just 100 extra calories a day — by replacing soda with water, say, or walking to school — can lead to significant weight loss over time: a pound every 35 days, or more than 10 pounds a year.

While it’s certainly a hopeful message, it’s also misleading. Numerous scientific studies show that small caloric changes have almost no long-term effect on weight. When we skip a cookie or exercise a little more, the body’s biological and behavioral adaptations kick in, significantly reducing the caloric benefits of our effort.

But can small changes in diet and exercise at least keep children from gaining weight? While some obesity experts think so, mathematical models suggest otherwise.

As a recent commentary in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted, the “small changes” theory fails to take the body’s adaptive mechanisms into account. The rise in children’s obesity over the past few decades can’t be explained by an extra 100-calorie soda each day, or fewer physical education classes. Skipping a cookie or walking to school would barely make a dent in a calorie imbalance that goes “far beyond the ability of most individuals to address on a personal level,” the authors wrote — on the order of walking 5 to 10 miles a day for 10 years.

This doesn’t mean small improvements are futile — far from it. But people need to take a realistic view of what they can accomplish.

“As clinicians, we celebrate small changes because they often lead to big changes,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston and a co-author of the JAMA commentary. “An obese adolescent who cuts back TV viewing from six to five hours each day may then go on to decrease viewing much more. However, it would be entirely unrealistic to think that these changes alone would produce substantial weight loss.”

Why wouldn’t they? The answer lies in biology. A person’s weight remains stable as long as the number of calories consumed doesn’t exceed the amount of calories the body spends, both on exercise and to maintain basic body functions. As the balance between calories going in and calories going out changes, we gain or lose weight.

But bodies don’t gain or lose weight indefinitely. Eventually, a cascade of biological changes kicks in to help the body maintain a new weight. As the JAMA article explains, a person who eats an extra cookie a day will gain some weight, but over time, an increasing proportion of the cookie’s calories also goes to taking care of the extra body weight. Eventually, the body adjusts and stops gaining weight, even if the person continues to eat the cookie.

Similar factors come into play when we skip the extra cookie. We may lose a little weight at first, but soon the body adjusts to the new weight and requires fewer calories.

Regrettably, however, the body is more resistant to weight loss than weight gain. Hormones and brain chemicals that regulate your unconscious drive to eat and how your body responds to exercise can make it even more difficult to lose the weight. You may skip the cookie but unknowingly compensate by eating a bagel later on or an extra serving of pasta at dinner.

“There is a much bigger picture than parsing out the cookie a day or the Coke a day,” said Dr. Jeffrey M. Friedman, head of Rockefeller University’s molecular genetics lab, which first identified leptin, a hormonal signal made by the body’s fat cells that regulates food intake and energy expenditure. “If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Why is someone obese?,’ they’ll say, ‘They eat too much.’ ”

“That is undoubtedly true,” he continued, “but the deeper question is why do they eat too much? It’s clear now that there are many important drivers to eat and that it is not purely a conscious or higher cognitive decision.”

This is not to say that the push for small daily changes in eating and exercise is misguided. James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Denver, says that while weight loss requires significant lifestyle changes, taking away extra calories through small steps can help slow and prevent weight gain.

In a study of 200 families, half were asked to replace 100 calories of sugar with a noncaloric sweetener and walk an extra 2,000 steps a day. The other families were asked to use pedometers to record their exercise but were not asked to make diet changes.

During the six-month study, both groups of children showed small but statistically significant drops in body mass index; the group that also cut 100 calories had more children who maintained or reduced body mass and fewer children who gained excess weight.

The study, published in 2007 in Pediatrics, didn’t look at long-term benefits. But Dr. Hill says it suggests that small changes can keep overweight kids from gaining even more excess weight.

“Once you’re trying for weight loss, you’re out of the small-change realm,” he said. “But the small-steps approach can stop weight gain.”

While small steps are unlikely to solve the nation’s obesity crisis, doctors say losing a little weight, eating more heart-healthy foods and increasing exercise can make a meaningful difference in overall health and risks for heart disease and diabetes.

“I’m not saying throw up your hands and forget about it,” Dr. Friedman said. “Instead of focusing on weight or appearance, focus on people’s health. There are things people can do to improve their health significantly that don’t require normalizing your weight.”

Dr. Ludwig still encourages individuals to make small changes, like watching less television or eating a few extra vegetables, because those shifts can be a prelude to even bigger lifestyle changes that may ultimately lead to weight loss. But he and others say that reversing obesity will require larger shifts — like regulating food advertising to children and eliminating government subsidies that make junk food cheap and profitable.

“We need to know what we’re up against in terms of the basic biological challenges, and then design a campaign that will truly address the problem in its full magnitude,” Dr. Ludwig said. “If we just expect that inner-city child to exercise self-control and walk a little bit more, then I think we’re in for a big disappointment.”

Stepping Up the Fight Against a Deadly Epidemic

Hey Guys,
Looking around, I found out that CUNY has a campaing against diabetes, which was started at Hostos Community College. I think it is very important because maybe we can contact this group and talk them into supporting our projects since overweight and obesity are the #1 causes of diabetes. Maybe you guys knew about this already, if not it would help to read their publication at the CUNY website. Here is the link.
http://www.cuny.edu/news/publications/cunymatters/may09/stepping-up-the-fight.html

Process of a Healthy bill to be passed!! EXAMPLE OF WISCONSIN

Wisconsin

Bill:
WI HB 746 - Locally Grown Food in School Meals
Summary:
Promoting the use of locally grown food in school meals and snacks and granting rule-making authority.
Sponsor(s):
Representative Amy Sue Vruwink (D-WI)
(888) 534-0070 - Madison
Rep.Vruwink@legis.wisconsin.gov
Status:
As of 3/1/2010:

Assembly amendment offered by committee on agriculture, February 25, 2010
As of 2/26/2010:

Public hearing held February 24, 2010
As of 2/24/2010:

Fiscal Estimate Received, February 22, 2010
As of 2/22/2010:

Committee Meeting February 24, 2010 at 9:15 am
As of 2/16/2010:

Introduced, read first time, and referred to committee on agriculture, February 12, 2010

FD HB 4710 - Farm to School Grants

Summary of this new Bill: To amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to award grants to eligible entities for farm to school programs.

This is great that bills like this will be in for people who want to initiate campus farms etc. In the long run, our farmers marker idea (if ever go far that we go for a local farm for CCNY), there will be money available for these sort of projects.

Here are details: To amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to award grants to eligible entities for farm to school programs.

Hurray for City College!

Our school is finally taking steps towards making a healthier City College!

Guide To Better Nutrition

Wellness & Counseling Center has a new campaign every
Monday providing information to help students make healthy food choices.

Date: Monday, March 1

Time: 12 noon - 2 pm

Location: Cafeteria