Erie Family Health Center

Erie celebrates the first days of summer with the new Henson Garden Initiative Program

The season of summer has finally arrived here in Chicago –and Erie Family Health Center does not plan on wasting a single moment of this balmy, beautiful weather. Recently, a few Erie employees volunteered their time to help break ground on the new Henson Garden Initiative Program, a part of Erie’s Health and Wellness Program at Erie Henson School Based Health Center. This program aims to promote healthy lifestyles to children living within the North Lawndale community through education on healthy eating and the importance of physical activity.

The Henson Garden Initiative is just one facet of the Henson Health and Wellness Program. The Henson Garden Initiative, which is an after school program for the students of Henson, will help children increase their knowledge of nutrition through planting and managing a garden. Since the children will be helping to assemble the garden and grow the produce, the garden will not only serve as an opportunity for education but also as an opportunity for physical activity. Children will also be able to share the information they’ve learned about healthy living to their peers through classroom presentations. Children will be sent home with produce from the garden as well as recipes to prepare with their parents at home. Any additional produce will be donated to the emergency food pantry at Henson, which help teach the students an important lesson on giving back to their community.

There are many benefits to exposing children, especially children living in urban areas, to information about healthy eating. “Exposing children to where their food comes from, how it grows and why it’s important to eat healthy foods allows them to be informed and empowered about making healthy choices,” says Elizabeth Mendoza, an Erie AmeriCorps Health Educator.  “When this information is presented at a young age, the children are then able to get a healthier start in life.”

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Erie Beats

This month Erie was presented with a check for a grant we received from the Aetna Foundation for the Henson Wellness Program at Erie Henson School-Based Health Center. The support from Aetna will allow Erie to provide the Henson Wellness Program to directly help reduce childhood obesity through three types of innovative programs: 1. BodyWorks afterschool program, 2. Building Active Lives Around Nutrition Centered Education (BALANCE) classroom-based curriculum and 3. Henson Garden Initiative.

The BodyWorks program will provide obese or overweight girls with the tools/strategies to improve eating and exercise habits. The BALANCE program will help children incorporate good nutrition and physical activity into their daily lives. The launch the Henson Garden Initiative will increase knowledge of nutrition while engaging children in physical activity by planting and maintaining a garden at Henson Elementary. All three of the programs are important to help children live healthier, happier lives. Thank you Aetna!

Beats this week: 

1) Before you know it the kids are going to be back in school and you will be thinking: ‘where did the summer go?’ But before sending the kiddies off to school you should be sure to get them their required school physicals and vaccinations in honor of National Immunization Awareness Month, which is celebrated in August!  

2) This week an incredibly insightful study was released on the social and economic impact of long-term obesity. The study, which used national data for 5,000 high school students over two decades, found that those individuals that had been overweight in high school and continued at that weight were less likely to advance their education and more likely to live at lower income levels than their classmates who were a healthier weight at age 18.

3) Well blogosphere, it just got a little bit easier to access dental care in the state of Illinois. In the last few months Governor Quinn has signed three bills making dental care more accessible; one of the most recent bills allows 10-day permits to out of state dentists that wish to cross the border to volunteer at dental clinics. The Chicago Dental Society’s blog, Open Wide, has a great rundown of the bills here.

4) As the city of Chicago heats up, so has the violence throughout the city. Painting a gloomy picture, overall crime is down in the city but murder rates are up. Just this past week, nine people were shot while walking near a bus terminal on Chicago’s south side.

5) Good news for women who have previously had c-sections: if you have another child you may not be required to have another c-section. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released new guidelines this week that allow most women to forego having another c-section.

Beats this week:

1) The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation released its annual report on obesity this week and the results for Illinois are not great: over the last year the percentage of obese adults has risen to 26.6% percent, up one whole percentage point from the year before. This places Illinois 26th in the nation for adult obesity.

2) Today the New York Times homepage included a story about the crisis of the AIDS Drug Assistance Program across the country. Increased demand because of unemployment and lack of insurance is too much for a system that continues to see cuts in funding. In Florida, the ADAP program has closed its doors to new clients and has chosen not to start a waiting list.

3) A study released this week claims that the diabetes drug, Avandia, has a higher risk of causing heart risks, strokes and deaths in older people than other diabetes medications. The release of this study comes two weeks before the FDA’s hearings on the safety of the drug.

4) Happy end of the fiscal year! Today is the last day of the fiscal year for the state of Illinois and we still do not have a budget in place. According to news sources, at an early morning press conference tomorrow Governor Quinn will outline the cuts that will be included in the new fiscal year budget. We are still staying tuned.

5) A recent tracking poll done by Kaiser Health has found that health care reform law is picking up support. In the last month health care reform has improved its approval rating by 7 points, with 48% of Americans having a favorable view of the legislation.