Success Story: Lucero Elementary School Hosts Second Annual Family Fitness Night

On the evening of May 21^st, Lucero Elementary School in the Bronx held its second Family Fitness Night since the school opened in 2013. The event featured physical activity stations, a nutrition education workshop led by Corbin Hill and New Settlement Apartments, tastings from the SchoolFood Alternative Menu facilitated by George Edwards of Garden to Café, and a variety of healthy food samples for students and their families.

The event was organized by Lucero’s School Wellness Council, spearheaded by Ms. Muia, the PE teacher. The school has won Gold for the Excellence in School Wellness Award for the past two years, and this year Ms. Muia was recognized as runner up for School Wellness Champion of the Year. She was also chosen to participate in the NYC Department of Education’s new PE Focus Grant, an opportunity for select PE teachers to participate in professional development and promote best practices for physical education among other schools in their district.

Family Fitness Night was the culminating event of Fitness Week—a school-wide effort to promote physical activity among the student body. Each day of the week fostered awareness around a different activity, such as Move Around Monday and Touch Your Toes Tuesday. Regular announcements made over the intercom reminded students to get up and stay active throughout the school day. Since regular physical activity is linked with improved academic performance in addition to better health outcomes, we hope other schools will follow Lucero’s lead in providing more opportunities for students to be physically active.

Reducing Obesity: Not Simple But Doable

Photo via k lachshand
Eating these is one way to reduce obesity.

James R. Knickman President & CEO at the New York StateHealth Foundation  asked the million dollar question in his Huffington Post piece, “What's Workingto Reduce Obesity?” In his post Mr. Knickman reveals that researchers from Drexel University studied a range of experiments aimed at reducing obesity, assessing how effective those strategies were. Researchers concluded that measures such as improving sidewalks and banning trans fats had strong impact but other approaches such as restaurants posting nutrition information had very little, to no impact.

So what does work to reduce obesity?

Mr. Knickman believes reducing obesity comes down to the following points:

- Better and more research will provide a better sense of the impact of various strategies reducing obesity in communities

- Different populations require different strategies so research can determine which approaches are most effective for high risk populations

- Seek out the economic and social benefits of interventions

- Success happens when communities and neighborhoods make it easy and affordable to be physically active and eat healthy foods, rather than one method such as banning trans fats

- All these healthy components add up to create “a neighborhood value, a point of pride” and becomes a part of the culture.

Mr. Knickman asks, “What is the best bang for your buck?” Here at the Bronx Health REACH Coalition we have launched the Towards A Healthier Bronx initiative using policy, systems and environmental improvements that increase access to healthy food, healthy beverages and opportunities for physical activity for over 75% of 675,215 residents residing in 12 high need South Bronx zip codes. Many public health campaigns rely heavily on clinical evidence, but fail to research the motivating factors relevant to that audience. To avoid this our campaign emphasizes actionable health behaviors.

Led by the Institute for Family Health, Bronx Health REACH was formed in 1999 to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes in diabetes and heart disease in African American and Latino communities in the southwest Bronx. Since then the Bronx Health REACH coalition has grown to include over 70 community-based organizations, 47 faith-based organizations, and health care providers. Bronx Health REACH serves as a national model of community empowerment demonstrating ways to build healthier communities by promoting healthy life-style behaviors.

The plan behind Towards A Healthier Bronx is:

- Increasing the number of bodegas and restaurants involved in incentive programs offering and promoting affordable healthy foods

- Increasing the number of farm stands making healthy food more affordable and available to the community

- Increasing the number of public and charter elementary schools emphasizing nutrition education and supporting related school policies

Partnering with bodega, deli and restaurant owners by providing them with training and education makes these initiatives not only a healthy benefit for their customers, but an economic benefit for the business owner. Encouraging chefs to attend monthly trainings on healthy food preparation results in offering patrons 2 to 3 healthier menu options. As New York City neighborhood demographics change, the restaurants and bodegas can now more easily adapt to the healthy choices their new customers are seeking resulting in those restaurant and bodega owners seeing more customers come into their stores and restaurants and gaining more revenue.

Mr. Knickman also states, “So if menu labeling isn't working for the target population--as the Drexel research and other studies suggest--we need to find and test other ways to make the healthy choice the easy choice.” Euny C. Lee, Evaluator and Policy Analyst at Bronx Health REACH agrees with Mr. Knickman citing a New York University study, “Calorie Labeling Has Barely Any Effecton Teenagers' or Parents' Food Purchases” which revealed that posting calories for food items at fast food restaurants had no impact on what consumer purchased.

Euny has moderated several focus groups with our faith-based coalition members to determine which types of messages encourage healthy behavior such as healthy eating and physical activity. Findings reveal educating the community about daily calorie intake to be important as most were not aware that you should consume no more than 2000 calories a day to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Messaging matters as well. Signs and posters promoting a health benefit rather than a scare tactic elicit more positive behavior changes. Interventions have to be customized to a specific demographic/ethnic group so that it is culturally and linguistically understandable and appropriate. Other results include social support such as having a friend or family member who you are accountable to for your actions to reach the desired health goals.

Focus group members felt this ad was not accurate saying the soda bottle should be bigger and would be more effective if other ailments such as diabetes and heart disease that causes stroke were listed.

Focus group members felt the above ad was actually a real advertisement selling juice boxes and a better message would have been the child drinking from a water bottle.

But the question still remains. “What is doable in the fight to reduce obesity?” Bronx Health REACH can point to a few projects. A city wide campaign was created to serve only low-fat and fat-free milk rather than whole milk at New York City public schools. Bronx Health REACH educated policy makers, Coalition members and residents from the community about obesity and the benefits of reduced fat milk. This led to the New York City Public school system adopting the policy and impacting over 1.1 million children in 1,579 schools as well as a model for public schools in 15 other states.

I don't know if the day will ever arrive where the only thing one needs to do is take a miracle pill that sheds those excess pounds without any physical effort while drinking a large vanilla milkshake every day. What I do know is these healthy initiatives together will begin slowing the overweight/obesity epidemic we now face.

Over 20 Bronx Bodegas Participate in Two Day Healthy Bodega Initiative to Promote Healthier Food and Beverages

Bodega owners attending the Healthy Bodega Training.

Mitch Klein casually walked around the television studio housed discreetly inside Lebron's Restaurant Equipment and Business Machines store awaiting the bodega owners to attend the first ever, Healthy Bodega Training seminar. Mitch would be the trainer for the two day, nine hour sessions that were held on the evenings of Tuesday, August 4 and Wednesday, August 5. Getting to this starting point of the Healthy Bodega Initiative had been many months in the making. Launched by Bronx Health REACH, a program of the Institute for Family Health, in partnership with the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, Inc. (HITN) and The Bodega Association of the United States (ASOBEU), the Healthy Bodega Training is a new and important part of the Healthy Bodega Initiative to address the obesity epidemic plaguing New York City’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.

This in-depth Healthy Bodega training was created to focus on business strategies, food handling and marketing/promotion practices. It is anticipated that the training will lead to an increase in the supply and demand for healthier food and beverages for customers by providing bodega owners with the tools and information to make offering healthy food and drink options a successful business in the high need, low income communities in which they are located. The training focused on best practices for becoming a H.E.R.O. bodega (healthy, educated, responsive, and operational). Topics covered included: the requirements of being a vendor for the SNAP and WIC programs, compliance with alcohol and tobacco vendor licensing, and appropriate responses to dealing with New York City agencies if a bodega receives a fine. The two day training was videotaped and will be accessible online through a password protected link.

Mitch expressed his confidence in the impact of this training. He said, "I have been doing trainings for forty years all across the country, and over the next two evenings I will be talking about how the small bodega can make a difference and compete against the big box stores. We have great success stories after doing similar programs in Miami, Orlando, and Philadelphia, and these bodegas can thrive and grow their business."

Mr. Ramon Murphy, who is not only the President of The Bodega Association of the United States, but has owned his bodega for twenty years noted, "I hope to see those bodega owners attending the training realize that they can have more healthy food offerings for the community. He went on to point out that “a partnership between bodega owners and the community can help to make the Bronx healthier."

While many bodega owners have been willing to participate in efforts to stock healthy food at the behest of healthy food advocates like Bronx Health REACH and others, many owners have not been able to succeed at selling healthy food because they lack the necessary information and tools to market and sell these healthy foods. The training not only provided much of the needed information, but plans are underway to develop and implement education and incentives to make healthy foods affordable and desirable.

The work is funded by a three year REACH (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health) grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Institute for Family Health/Bronx Health REACH is a founding member of ‘Not62 – The Campaign for a Healthy Bronx’, a new initiative, responding to the Bronx being ranked 62 out of the 62 counties in New York State by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County Health Ranking Report since 2009.

Just a few minutes past the scheduled start time the studio was filled with over twenty bodega owners taking their seats and donning headphones since most would need the presentation to be translated into Spanish. Mr. Murphy greeted the bodega owners and thanked them for taking time out of their busy schedule to attend the training. He spoke about how the Healthy Bodega initiative would not only be an economic benefit for their bodegas, but also a healthy benefit for the community. 

Prior to holding the training one of the stated goals Bronx Health REACH, HITN and the Bodega Association had was that the training should be practical and useful for the bodega owners. Following the two day training Julia Mair from HITN expressed how the Bodega Association Board members were excited about the fact that the Healthy Bodega training was useful and meaningful to them and the other bodega owners in attendance.

The feedback from the bodega owners was positive. Some of the bodega owners requested more training and expressed their willingness to participate in more training sessions since the topics discussed could be applied to the day to day work in their bodegas. Attendance for the second evening increased as some of the bodega owners brought in people who also worked in the stores. Those bodega owners felt that the information at the seminar was worth having others from their bodegas attend.

The Healthy Bodega Training seminar is a significant step towards offering the community a better selection of healthy food choices. As more bodega owners attend future Healthy Bodega Training seminars, the changes they make in their bodega will enable them to create sustainable practices that mean good business for them and the health for the community.

Harvest Home Brings Local, Farm-Fresh Produce to Soundview

 Photo by Brian Nobili

                                                               

From left to right: NY State Assemblyman Marcos A. Crespo, Harvest Home CEO Marita Owens, and NYC Council member Annabel Palma.

Soundview residents no longer have to travel outside the community for farm-fresh produce as the debut of The Soundview Farmers Market officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday, June 20. New York State Assemblyman Marcos A. Crespo and New York City Council member Annabel Palma along with many from the Soundview community in attendance. This new market, located at Morrison Avenue between Harrod Place and Westchester Avenue in the Bronx, will serve more than 60,000 residents, including approximately 10,000 SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/food stamp) recipients. The market will offer farm fresh fruits and vegetables from Alstede farms, a New Jersey grower.

To encourage residents to shop at the Soundview Farmers Market, Harvest Home has partnered with the Institute of Family Health through its Bronx Health REACH program to issue Fruit and Vegetable Rx to its patients at the Stevenson Health Center. Located at Morrison Avenue between Westchester Avenue and Harrod Place, the Market is open every Saturday through November 21, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. rain or shine. Bring your SNAP/EBT, WIC Farmer's Market and Senior Farmer Market coupons along with Health Bucks. News12 covered the event.

Having a farmers market in this area has been a long held dream of Assemblyman Marcos A. Crespo (D- Bronx, 85th AD). And, he, in conjunction with other New York State and New York City Elected Officials from the Bronx heartily welcome Harvest Home Farmers market to the Soundview community. Assemblyman Crespo noted that, “Healthy eating habits promote overall healthy lifestyles, which is why I am excited about welcoming Harvest Home Farmers Market to Soundview.” He pointed out that “Bringing in an array of healthy and organic produce to our community, in an affordable way, enhances healthier choices for both adults and children.”

Council Member Annabel Palma (D-Bronx, 18th Council District), a big supporter of the market stated, “I am excited to have a new farmers market in the Soundview section of my district; now my community will have better access to healthy food. I firmly believe that, when given the opportunities, New Yorkers want to eat healthy – they simply need to be provided the option.”

Neil S. Calman, MD, President and CEO of The Institute for Family Health stated, “I am thrilled that there is a farmers market opening in Soundview. We, at the Institute for Family Health, are deeply invested in improving the health and well-being of the residents of the Bronx and bringing fresh fruits and vegetables is a major breakthrough.”

Saturday's events included cooking demonstrations and a Bronx based disc jockey playing music. The Soundview Farmers Market can be reached by taking the 6 train to the Morrison Ave-Soundview station or the Bx4, Bx4a, Bx27 buses. Harvest Home Farmers Market will operate every Saturday rain or shine from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. through November 21st, 2015. WIC, FMNP Coupons, Senior FMNP Coupons, Health Bucks, SNAP (EBT) and Debit/Credit Cards  will all be accepted.

Healthy Water Campaign Begins in May

A photoshoot on Thursday, March 3 captured New York public school students from PS 294 and others engaging in various activities while enjoying a drink of fresh water.

The photoshoot is part of the Partnership for a Healthier NYC of which Bronx Health REACH is the Bronx borough lead development of a city-wide campaign to increase water consumption in New York City.

Residents in the South Bronx have some of the highest rates of diet related diseases including overweight and obesity, diabetes and heart disease compared to residents in the rest of New York City.

When people don’t drink enough water, they are more likely to drink soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages, which have been linked to weight gain and obesity. The campaign is scheduled to run from May to September 2016 and includes advertising on bus shelters and distribution of flyers and other promotional material by street teams at various Bronx summer events such as Boogie on the Boulevard.

El Diario Features Healthy Bodegas

Photo: Gerard Romo/El Diario

Hylonkys LaChapelle, owner of Gerard Minimarket is participating in the Healthy Bodega Initiative.

The January 30, 2016 issue of El Diario featured an article about the Healthy Bodega Initiative, a partnership between Bronx Health REACH, The Bodega Association of the United States (ASOBEU), and the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, Inc. (HITN). The article featured the owner of Gerard Minimarket, a bodega that participated in the August training, and featured conversations with  Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., ASOBEU President Ramon Murphy, and Bronx Health REACH Director Charmaine Ruddock.

Hylonkys LaChapelle, the owner of Gerard Minimarket located at 740 Gerard Avenue, Bronx, New York spoke of making changes to her bodega after attending the August training. She described re-arranging and moving the best looking apples and bananas to more prominent areas of shelf space.  The result is shoppers purchasing more fruits. “Now, two boxes of bananas (approximately 30 pounds of product) is sold in a matter of a day,” said LaChapelle.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. spoke about the #Not62 campaign (the Bronx is ranked as the least healthy of 62 of 62 counties in New York State) and how those healthy bodegas that participated in the August Healthy Bodega Training will now be a “part of the solution offering healthy alternatives to their customers.”

Charmaine Ruddock, Director of Bronx Health REACH provided background on how the training program emphasizes the importance of including healthy alternatives at the deli counter such as low fat cheese and low fat mayonnaise in sandwiches, and water offered rather than soda.

You can read the full article here.

The next two- day Healthy Bodega Training will be held on March 8th and March 9th from 5 to 9:30 p.m. If you know a bodega in your community that would benefit from this training, please contact Zulay at the Bodega Association at (212) 928-0252.

Gada Dickerson - Doing All That She Can to Help Improve the Health and Well-being of Bronx Residents

As the Health and Wellness Ministry Chairperson for Thessalonia Worship Center in the Bronx, Gada Dickerson always had an interest in health; not just her health, but improving the health and well-being of others. Her mother and father worked in a hospital, so it seemed natural for Gada to pursue a job as a hospital nurse. She enrolled and graduated from a nursing program, but as fate would have it, her nursing career was not to be. After completing the nursing program a hiring freeze went into effect at New York City public hospitals, which quickly limited her options. As a result, she changed her career focus and, instead, pursued a health services administration degree.

When Gada began attending Bronx Health REACH meetings, she discovered that Bronx Health REACH offered various health programs at Bronx churches. In time, Thessalonia Worship Center joined Bronx Health REACH's Faith Based Outreach Initiative. This Initiative helps faith organizations – of all denominations – raise their congregations awareness of racial and ethnic health disparities; provide health programming around nutrition and fitness, and diabetes prevention and management. The first program launched at Thessalonia Worship Center was Fine, Fit and Fabulous. It was well received by the congregation with 20 church members participating in the program. Gada pointed out that the reason for the success was, “Our late pastor, Dr. Rev. Shellie Sampson, Jr. was a big supporter of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. He viewed obesity as a daily struggle, and allowed us to use the banquet hall whenever we needed it for our Fine, Fit and Fabulous classes. Our current pastor, Reverend Malobe Sampson is also a big supporter."

Following on Fine, Fit and Fabulous, Thessalonia Worship Center implemented the culinary ministry which provided information on selecting, preparing, and serving healthy versions of favorite meals at church events. "Our church provided traditional fare such as macaroni and cheese, fried fish, fried chicken, and collard greens which are not the healthiest options. A Bronx Health REACH nutritionist spoke to the church kitchen staff that had been preparing the meals, and eventually there were changes made that included using less fat and salt, offering fruit and salad at the start of the buffet table, and reducing portion sizes," Gada noted.

As a lifelong South Bronx resident Gada sees many health challenges faced by those living in the community. “When I go grocery shopping and see other shoppers filling their shopping carts with unhealthy items such as frozen pizza and hot pockets, I wonder, where are the fruits and vegetables? If you eat fruits and vegetables as a child, you will continue eating them as an adult. People have to make health a priority in their life.”

For now, Gada is focused on improving the health of her fellow church members. “Our church is always doing a healthy program, and since I am on various email lists, I am able to get Thessalonia Worship Center involved in a variety of health programs. Currently our church is doing blood pressure readings every Sunday for church members.” Whether it be at her church, or a #Not62 – Campaign for A Healthy Bronx! Town Hall event, you can be certain that Gada is doing all that she can to help improve the health and well-being of her fellow Bronx residents.

PS 311 Goes Platinum for Excellence in School Wellness

Left to right: Tima Faison, Benjamin Ferder, and Hannah Joseph are members of the PS 311 (Lucero Elementary School) School Wellness Council.

This post was written by Victor Gidarisingh, Program Coordinator for the Creating Healthy Schools and Communities program.

PS 311 (Lucero Elementary School), has achieved the pinnacle of school wellness by creating a transformative health environment in their Bronx school. Seeing itself as more than a school, PS 311 recognizes that education institutions can also serve as a model for students and families in healthy eating, access to physical activity, and promoting a healthy lifestyle. For PS 311, the journey to platinum was an actualization of a vision that did not happen overnight. The process was gradual and began when former Physical Education teacher and current Physical Education Instruction Coach at PE Works, Ms. Cristina Muia, laid the foundation in 2014, when they received the gold award, then in 2015 gold plus, and now in 2016, platinum.

How did they achieve this? Newcomer and successor to Ms. Muia, PE Instructor Mr. Benjamin Ferder joined forces with Hannah Joseph, a FoodCorps Service Member and Tima Faison, a paraprofessional at the school. Hannah describes the winning formula this way, “We built from a foundation where everyone was passionate—individual’s passions came together and all members were able to bounce ideas off one another.” According to Mr. Ferder, “As a new teacher in school, I asked a lot of questions—I wanted to know what worked in the past. The continuity from years past inspired me to strive for platinum. While the three core members of Tima, Ben, and Hannah steered Lucero Elementary during the school year through their wellness council, their efforts were reinforced by the contributions of Principal Cuba, Parent Coordinator Ms. Lopez, and the students themselves who served as “wellness ambassadors.” They worked with Chef Kent to serve salad during lunch and model to their peers that lunch could be healthy, nutritious, and delicious.

Like a team that had been built for a championship, PS 311 made their breakthrough in year 3 and proudly achieved platinum, the highest possible award from The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Excellence in School Wellness Award. PS 311 hopes to maintain their strong healthy school and community environment. Their goal for next year is to increase parent involvement—to make school wellness programs more “parent-friendly” and to inspire more teacher involvement by hosting professional developments for teachers geared at combining physical activity and stress reduction. PS 311, a flagship school in District 9, aims to inspire surrounding schools in the Morrisania neighborhood—to address health disparities and exemplify how schools can be a place of wellness.