“Promoting ways for the community to get outdoors and exercise by providing safe, friendly and scenic bicycle and pedestrian facilities was something we talked about since we first formed,” John Newman, a ESMMKC coalition member, said.

“Funding the crafting of a bicycle/pedestrian greenway plan fit right into the objectives of the Healthy SC Initiative program, and we were fortunate to receive a grant to fund this study.”

The plan outlines new policies and programs along with a blueprint for expanding a safe and inviting network of bicycle, pedestrian and trail facilities. Newman said

The plan spawns from citizens currently not feeling safe using the current “a·utom:obile­ dominate road system” for biking, walking and jogging.’ Newman also said that the Kershaw County pathways plan could also influence methods of transportation.

“Although the majority of people would like bike/pedestrian facilities for recreation and exercise, a significant number of folks indicated that if such facilities were available, they would use them for transportation,” Newman said.

The community has been involved throughout the planning process through methods such as surveys, a public workshop, stakeholder interviews ·and active involvement from a ESMMKC citizen committee. Consultants on the planning committee include Alta Planning+Design, Alliance Consulting Engineers and the Palmetto Conservation Foundation. The planning team used technical data along with the community’s input to develop a plan for Kershaw County.

Newman said the public should expect to see recommendations for new, expanded and improved bicycle, pedestrian and greenway facilities. which includes sidewalks, bike lanes, hiking trails and bridal paths. Funding alternatives, local policies and programs will also be recommended during the meeting.

ESMMKC consulted with Alta Planning during the process, which Newsman said is among the premier firms in America for writing bicycle, pedestrian and greenway master plans and assisting in plan implementation. ESMMKC also examined the Richland/Lexington Three Rivers Greenway, Palmetto Trail, Florence Rail Trail and the city of Columbia Bicycle Plan for inspiration.

The pathways meeting will take place at the Robert Mills Courthouse in Camden at 607 Broad St. from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. beginning with a short presentation.

ESMMKC urges the community to attend in order to learn about the recommendation, provide feedback and meet with fellow citizens interested in supporting the implementation of the community’s vision for becoming more bike, walk and trail friendly.

For more information visit www.eatsmartmovemoresc.org/kershawcounty. Those interested can also call Pam Spivey (432-0951 or pamspivey@yahoo.com) or Newman (622-.8018 or newjohn@sc.rr.com).

The two entities announced Tuesday they are teaming up to complete the Palmetto Trail, a 425-mile project to connect South Carolina’s mountainous Upstate with the shimmering Coast of the Atlantic Ocean with pedestrian and bicycle trails. The vision for the trail was conceived in 1994 and about 315 miles of trail pieces have been completed. Natalie Britt, executive director of Palmetto Conservation Foundation, said progress on the trail system stalled in 2007 when the group’s state funding was slashed at a time they encountered some of the most difficult obstacles to completing the trails, including securing easements through private property.

Since then, the organization has turned to private donations and corporate sponsorships to continue as stewards of the trail. Britt said foundation members took Boeing representatives hiking through one of the trail’s most breathtaking stretches in the Lowcountry and they were impressed.

Boeing provided funds for Palmetto Conservation Foundation to hire Alta Planning to construct a master plan to unite all of the trail segments and completion the statewide recreation project.

“South Carolina has an abundance of natural resources,” said Jack Jones, Boeing South Carolina vice president and general manager, in a written statement. “Boeing is proud to support the Palmetto Conservation Foundation’s efforts to make sure that South Carolinians and visitors to our state have the opportunity to explore them all.”
The Palmetto Trail begins in Oconee State Park and tracks east through northern Pickens and Greenville counties before beginning its southern tilt in Spartanburg County. The trail then continues a roughly diagonal path across the state before it ends in Awendaw near the coast.

About 29.4 miles of trails will have to be added in Spartanburg County where five existing segments – Glenn Springs Passage, Croft Passage, Hub City Passage and Blue Wall Passage — already comprise about 39 miles of the Palmetto Trail.

Laura Ringo, executive director of Partners for Active Living, said she was excited to see momentum building to enhance trail offerings in Spartanburg County.

“Trails do a number of things in a community. They enhance economic development — we’ve seen that in Traveler’s Rest where five or six new businesses have located because of the Swamp Rabbit Trail — they help in creating a healthy, active community, and they provide connectivity … It really ties the Eastside to the Westside,” she said.

Spartanburg County recently completed a master plan for trails and Greenways, and Ringo said Palmetto Conservation Foundation was a partner in the planning process. Both agencies also used Alta Planning to design their plans, so Ringo said they are very compatible.

“We can see how what we’re doing in Spartanburg will plug in to what’s going on statewide,” Ringo said.

With the completion of a professional master an that includes user research and marketing strategies, Britt said she thinks Boeing’s grant will be the impetus for new life along the trail and she is optimistic it will be completed in five to 10 years.

The Healthy South Carolina Initiative has released Eat Smart Move More Anderson County as one of 34 recipients of a public health grant to fight obesity in Anderson County. This competitive funding opportunity provides awards to community based partnerships focused on finding long-term, sustainable, system-wide solutions to health care concerns. A complete listing of 2013-2014 grantees can be found on the HSCI website, http://healthysci.org.

Eat Smart Move More Anderson County will receive up to $77,200 over 18 months to work on making healthier choices an easier option for those in Anderson County and to encourage adults and children to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and get more exercise whether it be at work, school, church, or at home.

More specifically, these grant dollars will be focused on encouraging, assisting and providing resources to local schools and PTA/PTO’s to implement healthy school activities and policies to include:

Providing CATCH (Coordinated Approach To Child Health) curriculum training and materials to elementary schools interested in implementing the curriculum.

Partnering with PTA/PTO’s interested in supporting healthy activities and fundraisers within their schools. Workshops will be conducted for PTA/PTO’s interested and mini-grants opportunities will available for those PTAs/PTOs wanting to implement healthy activities.

Providing assistance to schools wanting to assess current healthy policies and activities and developing action plans for improvement.

In addition to obesity prevention efforts, a small portion of the funds granted will be utilized to promote smoke-free communities throughout Anderson County. Education efforts around decreasing tobacco use and the benefits of smoke-free communities will be implemented through a partnership with Imagine Anderson.

The overarching goal of HSCI is to assist communities experiencing a burden of chronic diseases caused by obesity and/or tobacco use. HSCI funded communities have demonstrated this need for financial support, as well as buy-in from the community.

For more information, contact Carol Loyd at 864-226-3438 ext. 507 or carol.loyd@uwandersoncty.com

Also, Eat Smart Move More Anderson County, a local coalition facilitated by the United Way, is pleased to announce a partnership with, USA TODAY Charitable Foundation and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) that will support area young people in being healthy and active. Through the Healthy Teens effort, these partners are providing a cross-curricular health and wellness literacy program to inspire middle school students. The program aims to build a better quality of life for the students, their families and their communities.

“United Way focuses on increasing healthy behaviors and ultimately overall health and wellness,” said Carol Burdette, president of United Way of Anderson County. “The Healthy Teens program allows us to build upon a unique partnership to engage student-athletes as role models for the next generation of healthy kids. Thanks to USA TODAY for joining us and creating an exciting middle-school curriculum that pairs collegiate athletes with middle school students for success.”

Up to 10 area middle school-age programs (which may be in or out of school) in Anderson County will be selected to participate in the Healthy Teen initiative.

South Carolina has received more than $22.69 million through the Prevention Fund since 2010. This essential investment is already at work, providing critical resources for prevention programs to combat the leading  causes of death and disability. Some of the accomplishments supported by the Fund include:

• Reduce the leading causes of disease, disability and death
• Promote better detection and response to disease threats
• Strengthen the public health system

Trust for America’s Health report provides an overview of efforts. Read the full report on Trust for America’s Health website.

Trust for America’s Health is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority. For more information, visit Trust for America’s Health website.

The children gathered around the classroom table at Pinehurst Elementary in North Charleston are having a difficult time cutting mangoes. Ann Hoch, a former chef, is there to help.

“This is the pit,” Hoch says. “It’s too hard to cut through if you hit it. Work around the pit and show the mango who’s the boss.”

Fifteen minutes later, these mangoes will be part of a homemade salsa. Hoch, one of a handful of volunteers in Pinehurst’s Cooking Matters after-school program, guides the children as they cut the fruit. When fifth grader Thomas Euten is finished slicing, he holds the pit and asks, “Can I give this to the compost?”

Thomas is here with his father Jamie. On Thursdays, Mr. Euten takes time off to accompany his sons to this class where they learn how to cook healthier meals at home.

Lowcountry Food Bank is spearheading the Cooking Matters initiative, alongside various partners. At Pinehurst, they’ve teamed up with the Charleston Area Children’s Garden Project. Since 2010, the school has been cultivating a garden outside that’s grown into an active outdoor classroom, but this spring, the non-profit launched a Friday afternoon farmers’ market in the school cafeteria. Today, schoolchildren can purchase fresh veggies from Joseph Fields Farm, Rosebank Farms, Limehouse Produce, and GrowFood Carolina at rates cheaper than what’s available at the grocery store. Families receiving government assistance can even use their SNAP benefits to purchase the produce.

The Friday farmers’ market and Cooking Matters are reactions to the recent push to bring better food to our nation’s schools and to help our children — and their families — lead healthier lives. And if these programs and those like them are successful, we may soon see South Carolina’s dismal obesity rates begin to fall.

Produce Where It’s Needed Most
In the neighborhoods and trailer parks along Ashley Phosphate Road where many of Pinehurst’s students live, it’s easy to get a Big Mac or a Bo-Berry Biscuit, but the only supermarket in sight is a small Mexican grocery. For people who live on James Island or in Mt. Pleasant, it’s easy to take for granted how effortless it is to access healthy, natural food, but for the parents who send their kids to Pinehurst, buying fresh produce is often a challenge.

Lori Zeth’s son Jonathan is in the fourth grade at Pinehurst. When Zeth found out about the Cooking Matters program, she called the school within five minutes to register.

“Before this class, I would wing it when it came to making dinner,” says Zeth, who hopes to find meals that her husband will enjoy. “Now, I don’t go to the store without making a list. We have a family meeting once a week to plan our menu for the week, and apart from one night out or ordering pizza, we cook everything at home.”

Jonathan does his part, as well. He’s learned how to scramble eggs and make meatballs, and at the school farmers’ market on Friday, he picked up a bag of sweet potatoes to cook over the weekend.

First launched in March 2012, the Cooking Matters program is overseen by Share Our Strength, an organization dedicated to ending childhood hunger. In Charleston, they’ve partnered with the Lowcountry Food Bank.

For the folks behind Cooking Matters, the emphasis is on cost-conscious healthy eating, not shedding pounds. “This isn’t a weight-loss program,” says Dana Mitchel, a registered dietitian who serves as the Lowcountry Food Bank’s nutrition educator. “The goal is to help a community better utilize their food resources.”

However, Mitchel notes that diet changes often lead to weight loss. “By learning to read ingredient lists, what food does to our bodies, and how to prepare real meals, people are controlling their weight, and they’re seeing how they can budget for fresh fruits and vegetables,” she says.

Cooking Matters classes are a great deal for the participants. After each session of the six-week course, participants are sent home with a bag of groceries provided by the Food Bank, along with a course book full of recipes.

“I’ve found that kids are much more willing to try something if they’ve cooked it themselves and had an experience with the ingredients,” says Ann Hoch, who taught preschool after attending culinary school. “My mom taught me to cook from scratch, and I wanted to pass that along, that food is a community thing.”

While the students grow more familiar with foods like kale, cabbage, and kumquats, the parents learn about unit pricing and budgeting. Students are also taught that each recipe is just a guideline. This type of info may seem basic to those who grew up in a household where home cooking was a daily activity, but it’s new to many, and it’s changing the way families across coastal South Carolina are eating.

The Take-Home Lesson
By 2 p.m. on Friday afternoon, the children at most any elementary school are buzzing with excitement. The weekend is about to begin, and it’ll be days before there’s another test or a lesson. But at Pinehurst, the students eagerly visit the cafeteria, grade by grade, for the chance to take a bag of fresh produce home to their family.

The spread of greens, beans, and berries is impressive. There’s organic red leaf lettuce ($1.50 a head), broccoli crowns (25 cents each), mixed micro-greens (50 cents a container), and sugar snap peas ($2 per pound). On Wednesdays, students are sent home with a reusable laminated sheet that includes over 50 items available throughout the year. That week’s offerings are circled, and parents can choose what they’d like their child to purchase.

Before picking out their produce, students are offered a “tasting” made from the available food by a local chef, a Trident Culinary student, or a community member. This week it’s sweet potato, cabbage, and Greek yogurt coleslaw, served on a cracker. Next fall, organizers hope the tastings will be prepared and served by Cooking Matters graduates.

Rosa Delaney recently completed the class with her granddaughter, Nyla. Despite a lifetime of cooking, Delaney says she’s been adding more fruits and vegetables to her dishes than ever before, and she has eliminated soda from her family’s fridge, replacing it with water served with lemon.

“A lot of what I’ve learned is how to plan better,” says Delaney. “When you put your menu together in advance, you save money and you save time. This class teaches us to plan ahead to make it spread.”

The Bigger Picture
When Children’s Garden Project founder Darlena Goodwin first started working with schools to create on-site gardens, she recognized that there was still a gap in the process between learning and consuming.

“You can have a garden and teach children about growing food, and the earth sciences and nutrition behind that, but then the buck stops when they get home,” she says. “I thought, ‘If we can put farmers’ markets together in schools, they will have access to produce and the transportation to get it home on the bus.’ But then they don’t know how to cook it, so I said, ‘Alright, let’s put a cooking class together.’” For help, she turned to the Lowcountry Food Bank.

The pieces fell into place thanks to grants and partnerships, but it required two years to bring the first farmers’ market to Angel Oak Elementary on Johns Island in fall 2012. A grant from the Center for Disease Control provided the funding, bestowed through a partnership with South Carolina’s Eat Smart, Move More anti-obesity program.

“Many of these families live in food deserts without a full-service grocery store, and they’re not getting education about nutrition,” Goodwin says. “By putting an educational farmers’ market directly into a school, it’s accessible, affordable, and we have a captive audience.”

The next step was incorporating EBT benefits, so that more families would be able to participate. “I see families that go to the Food Bank or to their churches to obtain free food, but then they will go to the convenience store and buy junk with their EBT,” Goodwin says.

Each of those factors went into her grant proposal, which resulted in 17 months of funding for pilot markets at Angel Oak and Pinehurst. Goodwin and farmers’ market coordinator Kimberly Douglas are actively working to connect Cooking Matters managers with the farmers and suppliers.

“The goal is to connect farms straight to the schools, so that parents, kids, and teachers all know who their farmers are,” Goodwin says.

By the time the two existing farmers’ markets are handed over to the schools to manage, Goodwin hopes to bring markets to more schools. She’s also created a template for the program, so that any school can utilize her contacts and advice to launch their own market, even without the direct involvement of the Garden Project.

At Pinehurst, these initiatives are working. Although young Jonathan Zest may be goofing off when he bites into a jalapeño and promptly has to run to the water fountain, he’s also learning about how a pepper, in its whole form, can flavor an entire dish. And in a part of town where unhealthy eating is the norm, that sort of knowledge may soon be paid forward to both his parents and the next generation.

The Weight of the Nation for Kids is a fun, family-friendly companion to the 2012 four-part documentary, The Weight of the Nation. The series was developed by HBO and the Institute of Medicine, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. The Weight of the Nation highlighted the environmental, social and genetic causes of obesity as well as practical solutions civic leaders and organizations are taking to improve the diets and physical activity of Americans. Now The Weight of the Nation for Kids focuses on what some kids are doing at home and in communities to make healthy changes to their diets, school menus, and every day activities.
The Weight of the Nation for Kids originally aired on May 7th, however you can check your local cable listings or HBO.com for other showtimes. In addition, all episodes can be viewed for free on The Weight of the Nation for Kids website.

The randomized controlled trial of Playworks, a nonprofit organization that delivers a safe, healthy recess in low-income elementary schools in 22 U.S. cities, found that the program reduced bullying, enhanced feelings of safety at school, increased vigorous physical activity during recess, and provided more time for classroom teaching. The research raises the possibility that what happens at recess can affect a school’s learning environment in important ways, and that improving recess and play may enable schools to address a number of pressing issues at the same time.

“These findings reinforce what we have seen across the nation in schools that partner with Playworks to make recess and play a priority,” said Nancy Barrand, senior adviser for program development with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “This study suggests that a great recess is an essential building block for healthy school environments that help kids thrive socially, emotionally, and physically.”

Key findings include:

• Less Bullying. Teachers in Playworks schools reported significantly less bullying and exclusionary behavior during recess compared to teachers in control schools—a 43 percent difference in average rating scores.
• Increased Feelings of Safety at School. Playworks teachers’ average rating of students’ feelings of safety at school was 20 percent higher than the average rating reported by teachers in control schools.
• More Vigorous Physical Activity. Accelerometer data showed that children in Playworks schools spent significantly more time engaged in vigorous physical activity at recess than their peers in control schools (14 percent versus 10percent of recess time—a 43 percent difference).
• Ready to Learn. Teachers in Playworks schools reported spending significantly less time to transition from recess to learning activities (34 percentfewer minutes).

According to Susanne James-Burdumy, Ph.D., education area leader for Mathematica, “Playworks had a positive impact on outcomes in the school climate, conflict resolution and aggression, learning and academic performance, and physical activity domains. These impacts suggest that Playworks was beneficial to schools, teachers, and students along multiple dimensions.”

Could a Better Recess be the Key to a Better School Day?

Despite shrinking budgets, schools are faced with the challenge of boosting academic performance while also having to address the social, emotional, and physical needs of students. Recess and other school-based playtime are some of the least-studied elements of the school day. Elementary school principals and teachers often say, however, that as goes recess, so goes the school day. Last year the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that “recess is a necessary break in the day for optimizing a child’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development.”

This new research contributes to a growing body of evidence that a safe, healthy, and organized recess environment—like the one Playworks provides—has the potential to be a key driver of better behavior and learning. A non-experimental study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco found that students from schools with Playworks reported higher levels of physical activity, participation at school, problem-solving, and goals/aspirations compared to students from schools without Playworks. In another evaluation, the Harvard Family Research Project credited Playworks with improving cooperation and bonds among students and between kids and adults in school. In Baltimore, principals have reported using programs such as Playworks to make progress in reducing conflict and suspensions.

“If we want to bring out the best in our kids, we should start by giving them a great recess,” said Jill Vialet, CEO and founder of Playworks. “A great recess primes young people to learn and puts them in a better position to succeed in school and in life. It’s also something every school can provide.”

Read more at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website.

A new study presented recently at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting shows that preschool children are less likely to be obese if they live in a neighborhood that is safe and within walking distance of parks and retail services.

“A child’s neighborhood is a potentially modifiable risk factor for obesity that we can target in order to stop the increasing prevalence of obesity in young children,” said lead author Julia B. Morinis, MD, MSc, a pediatrician at Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The study is part of a Canadian research collaboration called TARGetKids! (The Applied Research Group for Kids) that aims to determine if factors early in life are related to later health problems. Healthy children ages 0-5 years are enrolled in the ongoing study. Information is collected on their height, weight, waist circumference, nutrition, and physical and sedentary activity. Blood samples also are taken from each child.

For this study, researchers used TARGetKids data on 3,928 children in Toronto to determine if where they live was related to whether they were overweight or obese. Neighborhoods were evaluated based on car ownership, population, distance to retail locations, distance to parks and safety.

Results showed that 21 percent of the children were overweight, and 5 percent were obese, which is similar to the Canadian norms. Higher rates of overweight/obesity were found among children who live in neighborhoods that have fewer destinations within walking distance.

“How conducive a child’s neighborhood is to physical activity is related to a child’s body mass index (BMI) even after adjusting for factors we know are associated with obesity, including socioeconomic status, immigration, ethnicity, parental BMI, physical activity, age, gender and birth weight,” Dr. Morinis said.

Further research is needed to better understand the relationship between neighborhood factors and obesity so that the risk of obesity can be reduced through neighborhood changes and urban planning, the investigators concluded.

To view the abstract, “The Weight of Place: The Role of the Neighborhood in Pre-School Obesity,” go to http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS13L1_1685.8.

The Playful City USA program succeeds in benefitting children through the great work of mayors, city council members, parks and recreation departments, school districts and community leaders. Playful City USA communities are making a commitment to play and physical activity by developing unique local action plans to increase the quantity and quality of play in their community.

The criteria for the Playful Cities USA Program aligns with Let’s Move! Cities, Towns and Counties Goal V: Active of Kids of Play, which asks local elected officials to commit to mapping local playspaces, completing a needs assessment, developing an action plan and launching a minimum of three proven policies, programs or initiatives aimed at increasing access to play.

For more information on the KaBOOM! Playful City USA program, including Let’s Play grants and applications for 2014, visit www.playfulcityusa.org.

Previous research indicates that Latino children have disproportionately high rates of obesity, and marketing of high-calorie and nutrient-poor foods and beverages is linked to overweight and obesity among children and youths in the United States. Funded through the Healthy Eating Research program, this article examines Spanish-language children’s television and its food and beverage advertising.

This study analyzed the ad content for 158 Spanish-language television shows for children and compared them to ad content for 139 English-language programs, collected between February and April 2009. Nutritional quality of advertised products were evaluated using the U.S Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) food rating system.

Key Findings:

• The majority of child-directed ads (84.2% on Spanish shows and 72.5% on English shows) promoted Whoa products, such as candy, sugary cereals, fries, and sodas, which fall into the poorest nutritional category as defined by DHHS.
• Among companies that pledged to reform their child-directed advertising practices to encourage healthier choices, 78 percent of ads for children on Spanish-language television and 69 percent of ads for children on English-language television were for unhealthy foods or drinks.
• Fast-food commercials accounted for nearly half (46%) of all child-targeted food advertising on Spanish-language television.
• Ads for healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, were extremely rare, accounting for just 1 percent or fewer of all ads in either language.

This study shows significant disparities existing between the foods marketed on television to Spanish-speaking children as compared to English-speaking children, and should be considered in public health policy.