How Food & Fitness Community Partnerships Successfully Engaged Youth.

Authentic youth engagement was a central component of the Food & Fitness (F&F) Initiative, a 9-year community-based intervention, whose goal was to ensure that all children have equitable access to healthy food and built environments that promote safe physical activity. The youth engagement component focused on strategies and structures that would support a model framework for youth involved in F&F community partnerships. These strategies empowered youth by providing the leadership and technical skills needed in collaborative efforts to sustain change in communities with inequities, where structural racism and inequities result in poor health outcomes for children.

Creating healthier afterschool environments in the Healthy Eating Active Communities program.

Afterschool programs in California have the potential to play a major role in obesity prevention given that they serve close to a million low-income children. A five-year initiative called the Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) was funded in 2005 by the California Endowment to demonstrate that disparities related to childhood obesity and diabetes could be reduced in communities that offered families accessible and affordable opportunities for healthy eating and physical activity. The afterschool program setting constituted one of five key settings targeted in the initiative.

Adapting a 1% or less milk campaign for a Hispanic/Latino population: the Adelante Con Leche Semi-descremada 1% experience.

Purpose: Describe and evaluate a media campaign to encourage 1% or nonfat milk consumption.

Design: Uncontrolled pre/post test.

Setting: One largely rural (Santa Paula) and one urban (East Los Angeles) California community.