Tagged With "Brain and Feeding Behavior"
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A Different Kind of Food Trauma - Surviving Meanness
It is traumatic when your family does not share the food they have. Not because it is in short supply rather it is done out of meanness of spirit. However, as a child, you conclude you are not good enough, you do not belong. It is painful to be excluded.
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Churches Own Thousands of Acres of Land Across the U.S., and Some See That as an Opportunities for Farming Projects to Help Students and Families (NationSwell.com)
Over the past decade, there has been a push for ecological conservation within the Christian faith , motivated by concerns over how climate change might impact human welfare. That movement has coincided with an uptick in the number of faith-based farms , many of which equate divinity with sweat equity and its bountiful results. Where those two movements intersect sits Plainsong Farm & Ministry , a community-supported agriculture farm and ministry, located outside of Rockford, Michigan.
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Dysfunctional Eating May be Rooted in Early Life Experiences [psychcentral.com]
By Traci Pedersen, PsychCentral, September 20, 2019 Dysfunctional eating habits in overweight and obese adults may be deeply rooted in one’s personality traits due to early life experiences, according to a new study published in the journal Heliyon. As a result, weight loss interventions like surgery and cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) might not be enough to guarantee long-term success. “While the biological and environmental causes of obesity are well known, psychological determinants that...
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Family Resiliency and Childhood Obesity
Abstract Background: Traditional research primarily details child obesity from a risk perspective. Risk factors are disproportionately higher in children raised in poverty, thus negatively influencing the weight status of low-income children. Borrowing from the field of family studies, the concept of family resiliency might provide a unique perspective for discussions regarding childhood obesity, by helping to identify mediating or moderating protective mechanisms that are present within the...
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Farm to Hospital Bed: This Hospital Uses it's Roof to Feed Thousands (nationswell.com)
When Boston Medical Center needed a way for patients to access healthy, fresh food, it turned to its roof. The hospital’s 2,658-square-foot rooftop farm grows fresh produce for its food-insecure patients. These patients are referred to the Boston Medical Center’s Preventative Food Pantry . There, they gain access to over 25 crops and can take home fresh food for their entire household every two weeks. “The Preventive Food Pantry helps fill the gap for those who would otherwise be unable to...
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Food Prescription to Treat (Mental) Illness [NPR]
One man's story of improving his mental and physical health with careful use of nutrition. https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2019/06/04/future-of-food-as-medicine?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR00KriXrmSj1Q8Hb0eGYA8mIxwUR4t7AKmOwRcuBencwLfE_hFaIf7Cm_A
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Gut Instincts: Researchers Discover First Clues On How Gut Health Influences Brain Health (scienceblog.com)
New cellular and molecular processes underlying communication between gut microbes and brain cells have been described for the first time by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell’s Ithaca campus. “Our study provides new insight into the mechanisms of how the gut and brain communicate at the molecular level,” said co-senior author Dr. David Artis , director of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease , director of the Friedman Center for Nutrition and...
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How a federal free meal program affected school poverty stats [hechingerreport.org]
In 2014, schools had a new way to give students free breakfast and lunch, paid for by Uncle Sam. Instead of asking low-income families to apply for the meals, a school district could opt to give everyone free food if at least 40 percent of the student population was already on other forms of public assistance or fell into a needy category, such as being homeless or in foster care. This new “ community eligibility ” option was a policy change by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which...
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How Students Would Improve Their School Lunch Experience
This story shares how integral improving the school lunchroom experience is to children's nutritional and social-emotional health. ".... Studies have shown that when kids have 20 minutes or less to eat, they will eat less food and skip the fruit. Even if fiber and vitamin-rich foods end up on a kid’s tray, that doesn’t mean the kids have time to eat them, and this food often ends up in the trash. Changing food without addressing the time and conditions needed to eat those foods can get in...
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My Weight Has Affected My Career [forbes.com]
The thing about something like fatphobia is that it touches every part of your life. It shapes what you desire. It molds your personality. It changes the trajectory of your dreams. You lose sight of which part is you and which part is it. I mean honestly that's true for all of us for one reason or another. You never get to know what your story could be if it hadn’t been touched by gender education or racism or all those years that someone made fun of your knees or a lifetime of being told...
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New App Will Help Fight Hunger in San Diego County [kpbs.org]
By Priya Sridhar, KPBS, November 5, 2019 Each night, as many as 12% of San Diego County residents go to bed hungry. Meanwhile, 40% of food in our county is thrown away every day, according to Feeding San Diego, a local nonprofit dedicated to solving hunger and ending food waste. The organization launched a new app Tuesday called MealConnect that provides a platform for restaurants, hotels and caterers to offer up their excess food to one of 170 local organizations that feed the hungry. "The...
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Parenting Aggravation Associated with Food Insecurity Impacts Children’s Behavior and Development [poverty.ucdavis.edu]
Parents struggling with food insecurity can experience heightened levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. These pressures may negatively affect their parenting, which may in turn affect the behavior of their children. In this study, we investigated the parenting aggravation levels of parents who experienced food insecurity in the aftermath of the Great Recession. We also explored the extent to which such aggravation may be responsible for the link between food insecurity and children’s...
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Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness [California Community Colleges]
Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness March 7, 2019 Sacramento — More than half the students attending a California community college have trouble affording balanced meals or worry about running out of food, and nearly 1 in 5 are either homeless or do not have a stable place to live, according to a survey released today. Click HERE to read the press release and click HERE...
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Scaling Back on Weight as a Measure of Patient Health
by Yoni Freedoff, MD How we talk about weight and health is even more important when people have a history of trauma. Bariatric surgeon, Yoni Freedhoff, talks about how to rethink weight in health care. "Scales do measure the gravitational pull of Earth at a given moment in time. Scales don't measure the presence or absence of health, nor do they measure lifestyle or effort. And for patients, it's useful to note that scales don't measure happiness, success, or self worth, either. ... it's...
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School district turns unused cafeteria food into frozen, take-home meals for kids [KCTV 5]
(Meredith) – A school district in Indiana is working to provide take-home meals for students in need to ensure they have enough food to eat over the weekends. Elkhart Community Schools teamed up with a non-profit group called Cultivate to create a pilot program that will provide weekend meals for a small group of children at Woodland Elementary, WSBT reported. The district's goal is to expand the program to feed more students in neighboring schools. As part of the pilot program, 20 kids will...
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Schools Are Shaming Kids Who Can't Afford Lunch, but There Are Ways to Stop It [nationswell.com]
By Monica Humphries, Nationswell, August 14, 2019 IT’S GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN JUST A BAN ON LUNCH SHAMING. AS SCHOOLS STRUGGLE TO FEED CHILDREN WITHOUT PLUMMETING INTO DEBT, LEGISLATORS AND ORGANIZATIONS ARE LOOKING AT SOLUTIONS. Stephanie Woodard still remembers the weight of a roll of pennies in her pocket, hoping it would be enough to pay for lunch. The professional learning specialist for Fort Bend International School District recalls sneaking into her father’s bedroom and digging...
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Self-control and obesity: Gender matters in children [medicalxpress.com]
A toddler's self-regulation—the ability to change behavior in different social situations—may predict whether he or she will be obese come kindergarten, but the connection appears to be much different for girls than for boys. Self-regulation is something all children must develop, and poorer self-control in childhood is associated with worse adult health, economic and social outcomes. However, a new study from The Ohio State University found that more self-regulation may not necessarily...
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She, The People: Dara Cooper On Food Redlining, Reparations, And Freeing The Land
"From Houston, Texas , and Atlanta, Georgia , to Birmingham, Alabama ; Baltimore, Maryland ; Nashville, Tennessee , and Jackson, Mississippi , the long, treacherous history of redlining in this country aligns with where food redlining (or food apartheid) is prevalent today—and that is unambiguously state violence. “Just looking at food alone, hunger, the inability to feed ourselves,” Cooper tells ESSENCE. “ That’s violent . To be hungry and malnourished is a very violent phenomenon. ...
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Stress and self-esteem in adolescence predict physical activity and sedentary behavior in adulthood
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a newly-published study in the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity examines how long term exposure to stress correlates with the level of exercise in adulthood. The study also examines the association of higher self esteem and physical activity, and the role that stress and self esteem play in adult obesity. Read more here
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The Wrong Eating Habits Can Hurt Your Brain, Not Just Your Waistline
"A diet high in saturated fats and sugars, the so-called 'Western Diet', actually affects the parts of the brain that are important to memory and make people more likely to crave the unhealthful food -- Research from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience found that obese people have less white matter in their brains than their lean peers — as if their brains were 10 years older." ...
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Re: This is How Dutch Kids Enjoy and Learn from Keeping Vegetable Gardens (brightvibes.com)
I was so interested in this subject that i felt compelled to respond. sorry for its length...A few years ago i managed a family service in a most disadvantaged community in Kent. The families that i supported came from an array of chaotic backgrounds and traumatic experiences that initially our community service mirrored that of a war zone. The rates of families on CP and CHIN were alarming. i spent most of my days stopping fights breaking out, and arguments NOT with children, but their...
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‘Building Wealth and Health Network’ Reduces Food Insecurity Without Providing Food [drexel.edu]
As the coronavirus pandemic forces so many to reckon with growing food insecurity and increased health challenges, the Building Wealth and Health Network program of Drexel University’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities is reducing food insecurity and improving mental health – without distributing any food or medicine. How? By focusing on group experiences that promote healing and help people save money and take control over their own finances. Parents of young children, who completed the...
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Tighter federal rules end free meals for students in California and nationwide (Ukiah Daily Journal)
By Ali Tadayon and Joyce Tagal, August 27, 2020, EdSource. Millions of students and families in California and nationwide who have come to rely on free grab-and-go meals during the past five months of the pandemic may no longer qualify for the food service. Since the start of the Covid-19 closures, school districts have served millions of packaged meals at no cost and without eligibility requirements to all children at food distribution sites made possible by a series of federal waivers, the...
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This Harlem chef is cooking up international dishes to strengthen his local community (upworthy.com)
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected diverse communities due largely in part to social factors such as inadequate access to housing, income, dietary options, education and employment — all of which have been shown to affect people's physical health. Recognizing that inequity, Harlem-based chef JJ Johnson sought out to help his community maximize its health during the pandemic — one grain at a time. Johnson manages FIELDTRIP , a health-focused restaurant that strives to bring...
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How to Feed Ourselves in a Time of Climate Crisis (yesmagazine.org)
Changing the food system is the most important thing humans can do to fix our broken carbon cycles. Meanwhile, food security is all about adaptation when you’re dealing with crazy weather and shifting growing zones. How can a world of 7 billion—and growing—feed itself? Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system. Land Ownership 1. Indigenous land sovereignty The world is watching as historic land reforms on the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu show how to return land...
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New Transforming Trauma Episode: Complex Trauma, Self-Sabotage, Diet Culture, and Eating Disorder Recovery with Iris McAlpin
T ransforming Trauma Episode 030: Complex Trauma, Self-Sabotage, Diet Culture, and Eating Disorder Recovery with Iris McAlpin In this episode of Transforming Trauma, our host Sarah Buino interviews NARM Practitioner and coach Iris McAlpin. Iris specializes in eating disorder recovery, complex trauma, and self-sabotage. Iris also hosts a podcast called Pure Curiosity which seeks to facilitate nuanced conversations about the human experience and de-stigmatize mental health challenges. Iris...
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How adverse childhood experiences influence eating disorders
People who have eating disorders frequently have a history of adverse childhood experiences and trauma. Find out what parents need to know
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Moving Beyond the Scarcity Mindset (nonprofitquarterly.org)
Excerpted from Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries: New Tools to End Hunger by Katie Martin. Copyright © 2021 by Katie Martin. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, DC. The following section draws from portions of Chapter 3, “A Paradigm Shift in How We Talk about Hunger,” pp. 46–50, 52–53. Scarcity Mentality: How to Move from Deficit-Based to Strength-Based Language A key issue that is holding us back from really tackling and ending hunger is the focus on not having enough.
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How ACEs Impact Unconscious Eating
If you suffer from unconscious eating, your ACEs may be impacting your ability to lose weight. Unfortunately, a simple diet or exercise program won’t work because it doesn’t address the WHY behind your unconscious eating patterns in the first place. Learn the link between ACEs and unconcious eating.
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Meditations on Enough: 5 meditations on what “enough” means, from food to rest to diversity. (yesmagazine.org)
“Enough food” is each person having daily access to an average of 2,353 calories of culturally appropriate, locally available, affordable, unrefined, and delectable nourishment. The good news is that we already grow enough food to feed 10 billion people . The challenges are that the food is not fairly distributed, a lot of it is thrown away, and the process of growing it industrially is trashing the planet. Contrary to conventional mythology, smallholder farms and regenerative agriculture...
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5 Tips for Surviving the Holidays With an Eating Disorder (yesmagazine.org)
As someone with an eating disorder history, the holidays, which should be joyful and exciting, can be awkward—and even destructive—as the same problems present themselves year after year: We’re expected to spend time with family members who can be jarring. We’re faced not only with an abundance of food, but also open judgments about how much (or how little) we eat. Our bodies are considered small-talk conversation starters, like the size of our waists are as banal as the fluctuating weather.
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The Health Benefits of Gardening (healthiergeneration.org)
From a young age, individuals learn about the world through observation, discovery, and interaction with their surroundings. If you have ever taken a walk through a park with a child, you may have noticed a change in their behavior. Spending time in nature benefits the health of both our minds and our bodies . A home, community, or school-garden provides the perfect setting to explore the wonders of nature. With spring just around the corner, there is no better time to start planning a...
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The 2023 Creating Resilient Communities Summer Curriculum is Now Open for Registration
PACEs Connection is excited to roll out our summer 2023 *CRC* curriculum dates. Members who complete the CRC will qualify for a fall 2023 fellowship program.
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The Link Between Highly Processed Foods and Brain Health
Roughly 60 percent of the calories in the average American diet come from highly processed foods. We’ve known for decades that eating such packaged products — like some breakfast cereals, snack bars, frozen meals and virtually all packaged sweets, among many other things — is linked to unwelcome health outcomes, like an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and even cancer. But more recent studies point to another major downside to these often delicious, always convenient foods: They appear to...
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Scientists Don’t Agree on What Causes Obesity, but They Know What Doesn’t
LONDON — A select group of the world’s top researchers studying obesity recently gathered in the gilded rooms of the Royal Society, the science academy of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, where ideas like gravity and evolution were once debated. Now scientists were arguing about the causes of obesity, which affects more than 40 percent of U.S. adults and costs the health system about $ 173 billion each year . At the meeting’s closing session, John Speakman , a biologist, offered this...
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I’ve Always Struggled With My Weight. Losing It Didn’t Mean Winning.
There were a few bad moments, over the course of a few bad months, that led me to download the weight- loss app. These will probably sound trivial to anyone who is not me, and of course they are trivial — but we are talking about bodies here, and about my body in particular, and one of the defining features of having a body is that it is a fire hose of tiny humiliations blasting you constantly in the face, never allowing you to look away, even when you most want to. One bad moment happened...
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The Neuroscience of Emotional Eating
For some people, no matter how much they try to eat healthy, when intense emotions surface, overcoming food cravings seems impossible. We reach for the comfort foods that we hope will make us feel better in the short term, but afterwards often end up feeling down in the dumps. That feeling of shame can be overwhelming — particularly in a diet-driven society where maintaining a healthy relationship with food is difficult, especially if it’s used as a coping mechanism. But why do some people...
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What Children Really Need Is Adults That Understand Development
The brain doesn’t fully develop until about the age of 25. This fact is sometimes quite surprising and eye opening to most adults. It can also be somewhat overwhelming for new parents and professionals who are interacting with babies and young children every day, to contemplate. It is essential to realize however, that the greatest time of development occurs in the years prior to kindergarten. And even more critical to understand is that by age three 85 percent of the core structures of the...
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Early Relational Health Innovators Partner In Program Supported by PACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities Members in Twelve California Counties
Christina Bethell, Ph.D, MBA, MPH, founder of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), principal author of the groundbreaking study on positive childhood experiences, and creator of the free Well Visit Planner, among other innovations. Two internationally-respected leaders and innovators in complementary aspects of early relational health and childhood and maternal health equity recently launched a partnership they believe will benefit everyone from newborn babies and...
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Re: What Children Really Need Is Adults That Understand Development
Yes! I have been saying this (to myself mostly) for years. One cannot address ACES if understanding of child development is not part of it.