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Jonni Hinton, James LaRiza, Rebecca LaRiza, Allie LaFayette, Emily LaFayette |
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Kids Take on - and Change - the System
Shasta County, at the far north end of California’s Great Central Valley, is 97 percent rural. Sixteen percent of the population lives below the poverty level. The county has the eighth highest prevalence of overweight low-income children in California.
Through The California Endowment’s Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) program, South Shasta County was selected as one of six community demonstration projects aimed at reducing obesity and diabetes by improving food and physical activity environments for school-age children. HEAC funding supports the partnership of the Public Health Department, the Anderson Partnership for Healthy Children, and the South County Consortium of schools and school districts. It’s through this collaboration that the “Kids Make a Stand” project got off the ground.
Now setting their sights on new goals, “the kids want to get other big retailers on board, along with the smaller mom-and-pop stores,” Jeri Butler of Shasta County Public Health reports. The students liked the idea of a city ordinance encouraging all businesses that sell food to designate an area within their stores for kid-healthy options; the City Council is interested in working with them to develop a resolution.
So in shifting the debate on children’s health from individual choices toward a broader focus on community environment, the students are helping making the healthy choice the easy choice. The students' efforts have created momentum for widespread changes in policy and practice that can ultimately help prevent chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes that are so rampant in their county.
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