healthy food - BABIES COST MORE WHEN YOU�RE POOR - SIBEJO

New parents quickly learn there are very few financial supports for families with young children to help them buy baby supplies. Many low-income families are doubly penalized because they can�t  afford to join wholesale stores or shop online and therefore pay more for basic supplies. One blogger (with Amazon Prime and Costco memberships and a car) compared her costs with the retail options available to a mother without these options.

• Diapers--22 cents/diaper online versus 36 cents at the local grocery store
• Formula--$20 per week at big box store versus $29 at local grocery
• Baby food--$5 made at home (thanks to  food processor/blender/dishwasher) versus $18 for jars at grocery store
• Baby supplies (swaddles, laundry detergent, diaper cream, and bottles)--free thanks to points on Amazon credit card versus $10 at grocery store.

Total savings=$41 per week or over $2000 a year.

Source: Talk Poverty, 6/1/16, Baby Costs

healthy food - POVERTY IS TOXIC TO CHILDREN�S BRAINS - SIBEJO

Mounting evidence shows that children who grow up poor are more likely to be subjected to stresses like hunger and neglect that act like toxins and hijack the developing brain. In small doses, stress is normal, even helpful. But repeated exposures to adverse childhood experiences remake the architecture of a child�s developing brain, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of executive function and differentiating between good and bad, and the hippocampus, which handles memories and learning. Toxic stress can interact with other toxins like air pollution with consequences including cognitive deficits and emotional disorders, which in turn, help perpetuate disadvantage. There is evidence that children aren�t only affected by stress they experience directly, but by traumas experienced by their parents and grandparents. Some researchers have found evidence that these traumas are passed from parent to child.

Source: Mailman School of Public Health, 5/10/16, Toxic Stress

healthy food - DO NUTRITION PROGRAMS MAKE TEENS HUNGRY? - SIBEJO

As any parent of a teenager knows, his or her child eats a lot. The new U.S. dietary guidelines estimate that teens need as many calories as their parents, and more than three times their younger siblings. While the dietary guidelines treat teenagers like adults, SNAP benefit calculations do not. The maximum SNAP benefit is based on the monthly cost of the USDA�s �Thrifty Food Plan� for a hypothetical (or �reference�) family of two adults and two children under age 12. By USDA�s own calculations, feeding a family of four with two teenage boys would cost $50 more per month than the maximum SNAP benefit available to the family. Reformulating the Thrifty Food Plan with the needs of teens in mind could help to reduce food insecurity and very low food security among recipient households with teenagers.

Nutrition standards for school lunch and breakfast programs could also be revised to pay particular attention to the dietary needs of teenagers and children living in food-insecure households. Current calorie guidelines, developed to reduce obesity, result in male teens getting about 50% of their daily calories from school meals compared to elementary school children who can get up to 75% of their daily calories at school.

Source: Brookings Institution, 4/29/16, Hungry Teens

healthy food - KIDS ARE EATING HEALTHY SCHOOL LUNCHES - SIBEJO

Schools can serve healthy lunches, but whether kids will eat them is a question that has been asked often since 2012-13, when updated national nutrition standards led districts across the United States to raise the nutritional quality of their meals. Multiple studies comparing students� eating habits before and after these changes show that the answer is clearly yes.  For example, researchers from UConn�s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity weighed and photographed lunches served to children at 12 Connecticut schools. Compared with 2012, the amount of their entrees that children ate increased by nearly 13 percentage points in 2013, and 18 percentage points of their vegetables by 2014. Food waste declined as a result. The researchers also found that greater variety led to healthier choices. Each additional fruit option offered was associated with a 9.3% increase in fruit servings selected by students.

Source: Pew Charitable Trust, 4/14/16, School Lunches

healthy food - WIC CHANGES IMPROVE TODDLER�S NUTRITION - SIBEJO

A change to the WIC nutrition program improved the diets of millions of young children in low-income families, a new study says. Researchers compared the eating habits of nearly 1,200 2- to 4-year-olds in low-income households before and after WIC was changed in 2009. With the revamp, more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat milk were included in the WIC food voucher package.

The change improved the diets for the approximately 4 million children in the program, according to the University of California (UC) study published.

Source: Health Day, 4/7/16, WIC Changes Work