Lucero Elementary School Shines in School Wellness

Located in the Mount Eden section of the Bronx, Lucero Elementary School is a brand new K-2 school that opened its doors in 2013.  Since opening its doors in September, Lucero has recognized the unacceptably high rates of childhood obesity and the burden of chronic disease on families that already exist in the South Bronx.  Lucero Elementary School has taken significant steps to implement, communicate, and enforce a healthy snack policy, with the help of their very first school wellness committee. The Wellness committee, which is comprised of teachers, parents, and community partners, created and implemented an innovative sticker program to help students make healthier snack choices, as well as educate parents. 

The Lucero school wellness council developed a sticker that is placed on unhealthy snacks to remind students and parents to make better snack choices.  All Lucero students and staff have been constantly monitoring each other.  Students are checking nutrition labels to determine whether or not a snack is unhealthy, and are rewarded each Friday during the school’s community circle meeting for all of their hard work.  Students are presented with certificates for choosing healthier options in the cafeteria, helping monitor class snacks, and reading and analyzing nutrition labels.   The unhealthy snack sticker is a very powerful tool that sends a clear message to students and parents. 

Not only are Lucero students promoting and learning about healthier snack options, but they are also receiving the state mandated 120 minutes per week of physical education -- which is an excellent accomplishment.  Lucero Elementary School is also incorporating wellness into the classroom, through 20 minutes per day of Activity Works physical activity breaks. All students also attend weekly CookShop classes, where they learn about and enjoy sampling new vegetables, which they then recognize and select from the cafeteria salad bar.  Parents also have the opportunity to attend CookShop for families so that they are being educated about a variety of fruits and vegetables along with their children. In addition, the school promotes Zumba classes, which are held at the local community center, where parents have the opportunity to stay active each week.

Bronx Health REACH provides the school with support for their nutrition and fitness programs and policies through the Healthy Schools NY program, funded through the New York State Department of Health.  Healthy Schools NY aims to increase the number of schools that implement programs and policies that promote the consumption of healthy foods and beverages, fitness, and compliance with state physical education regulations.

Fitness & Activity Night, held on May 1^st, was the culmination of the Lucero community’s efforts and was a celebration of the healthy school year for Lucero students and families, and community members. Fitness & Activity Night featured fitness stations and a sampling of fresh and healthy dishes from New Settlement Apartments and the Department of Education’s Office of SchoolFood.  Funding for the event was made possible in part through a School Wellness Council grant from the New York City Department of Education.  The event accommodated over three hundred people, and was truly a success for Lucero Elementary School. 

Congratulations to Lucero Elementary School on receiving Gold Recognition in the Excellence in School Wellness Award program during the school’s first year! Thanks to Cristina Muia, Physical Education teacher and wellness coordinator at Lucero Elementary School, and Taisy Conk, Community Healthy Food Advocate from New Settlement Apartments, for their contributions to this article.

Summer Tradition Getting (Kids) Bigger Every Year

We all know the sound of the ice cream truck.  Slightly distorted songs, sometimes Christmas themed, calling children from the neighborhood to the sidewalks to stare at the colorful advertisements pasted on a white truck.  Cartoon characters and superhero shaped frozen treats entice children into begging for a couple of dollars to buy their favorite character.

Ice cream trucks make getting sweets – and gaining weight – easy and fast to get. Think about how the truck finds its customers.  It brings the store to you, even if you don’t want it, and plays a song that invites you to come and buy something. This is how the ice cream truck ensures they get customers.  Whether or not you were hungry or wanted ice cream, when you hear that music your brain screams for it.  While you may remind yourself that you are on a diet or you have dinner in an hour, children do not often have that same capacity.  They hear the truck and immediately want ice cream without thinking of the future consequences it may pose, like weight gain. In the past 30 years childhood obesity has doubled – tripling for adolescents! –due in part to the massive amount of food advertising kids see every day.   

Music isn’t the only way that ice cream trucks target kids.  Did you know that packaging can make us think that the food advertised tastes better? According to one study, 50% of children surveyed found that foods with cartoon characters on the packaging tasted better than the same product without the character.  Ice cream trucks regularly feature character-themed treats.  Additionally, the “menu” pasted on the side of the truck consists entirely of pictures, many of which promote the superhero and princess shaped ice creams, adding yet another thing to make children want the frozen treats.

Summer is a fun time with all those summer fruits and treats, family gatherings, and  outdoor activities.  Let’s enjoy it all including the traditional treats that accompany this season but let’s do it in moderation and let’s be aware of how advertising is affecting us and our family. 

To learn more about unhealthy food marketing to children and the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene’s District Public Health Office’s “We All Want Healthy Children” campaign, please visit http://www.bronxhealthreach.org/2014/05/31/we-all-want-healthy-children/ 

This blog post was written by Caroline Dunn, a student at Silberman School of Social Work and intern at Bronx Health REACH.

Pedal to the Grindstone: Biking to Work

Bike to Work Day, held in New York on May 16^th (last Friday), is a celebration of the bike being an environmental and wallet-friendly option for commuting from your home to your work place.  In honor of this event we had a Q&A session with Laura Solis from Bike New York about traveling via bicycle. Here’s what she said!

 If I live, let’s say 5 miles from my job, how long would it take me to get there? 

 That depends on a few factors. I used to live 5 miles away from my last job. The commute using public transportation would involve either 2 buses and the train or 3 buses and it’d take me just over an hour to get there. When I started riding my bike, it took me roughly 30 minutes on a day when I was being mindful not to break into a sweat. There was this one time it took me only 19 minutes, but I never did quite repeat that great timing. 

Do you remember the first time you biked to work?

The first day I tried it out I actually did it on my day off so that there wasn’t any pressure to get there “on time”. I went on a Sunday morning when traffic would be presumably lightest and I timed myself. I don’t remember what my time was, but I remember giving myself and hour and a half and I had planned 3 rest-stops, including a coffee shop along the way. Whenever I think back to that day, I remember how over prepared I was, how much I had overestimated what 5 miles really felt like, and how I had underestimated myself tremendously.  In the end, I only stopped once, and it was to pat myself on the back and tag a swig of water.

Clearly, biking is a great workout for your legs, but does it tone the jiggle anywhere else?

Biking is a tremendous workout, you will have buns of steel in no time and your abs/core will love you forevermore.

Are there any other benefits to biking besides the workout?

I will say that the money I save on transportation I spend on food to keep me fueled. And the saying “you are what you eat”, couldn’t be more true than when you are riding a bike. If I eat a bacon cheddar burger with fries and a shake before a bike ride, I ride like I just ate a bacon cheddar burger with fries and a shake. The bigger the variety of colors on my plate (not including condiments!) and range of food groups, the more vibrant I feel on my bike.

Ok, this may be a little personal but what about the, well, smell? Any tips?

Hygiene in general is a really big deal to me, whether or not I’m on my bike. With that said, I quickly learned how to ride so that I didn’t break into a sweat, but I also learned what was the best way to get rid of the smell of NYC streets that will latch on to your body if you’re riding through traffic. I stocked up on sun dresses when I started riding a bike because there is NOTHING, like riding a bike in a skirt or a dress. The sheer ventilation that you get in all the necessary places will have you smiling up and down the road. I am more concerned with dirt, which is attracted to you if you are wearing lotion, sunscreen in particular. To remove the grime, which usually only accumulates on a ride greater than 5 miles, I use Action Wipes. Action Wipes are amazing! They remove any evidence of your having been active in a matter of minutes, and it does so using all natural ingredients, without drying your skin while leaving you feeling clean and fresh. They also don’t leave any lint behind, which baby wipes often do, and they’re the perfect texture for sloughing off the grease that will one day end up on your leg.

What are the safest routes in the Bronx? Is there somewhere I can find this information?

The Bronx has a great number of greenways (paths surrounded by greenery) as a result of being the greenest borough! Many folks feel really safe along the greenways because the interaction with traffic is very limited. We’ve got the Bronx River Greenway, Mosholu Parkway Greenway, the Hutchinson River Greenway, and the Pelham Parkway Greenway.  Have you checked out the 2014 NYC Bike Map?!!! The promising green dotted lines indicate forthcoming “potential” bike lanes, including an extension of the existing Hudson River Greenway, which currently ends in Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan, but looks to make its way up to Riverdale. There are also lots of green dots along the Bronx Harlem River Greenway as well! In addition to the Bike Map, ridethecity (website and app), maps out direct, safe and safer routes, respectively. They are still one of my most used #bikenyc resources.

Bike lanes are great, but being safe has a lot to do with feeling safe and feeling safe often comes with knowledge which leads to confidence. You can get this sort of knowledge, and subsequent confidence, by attending free Bike New York Street Skills Class and Street Skills Ride. Honestly, it’s where I picked up most of my tips and tricks, or rather advice and instruction. As much as I love the greenways, and hope for more bike lanes in the Bronx, the existing ones are not currently conducive to an efficient commute for me, so you’ll most often see me on the road, safely alongside the cars, without a bike lane.

If I wanted to take a class to learn more about biking in NYC or find a group to ride with, how could I do that?  

Visit www.bikenewyork.org/education to learn more about biking safely and confidently in NYC for free. We have free classes throughout the five boroughs. Our Community Bike Education Center in the Bronx is located in the southwest playground of Van Cortlandt Park.

If you want to ride with a group, I’d recommend our very own Bike Path Cruise Rides. You can also check out the list of bike clubs on our website. A few of my favorites include Social Cycling NYC, NYC Biketrain and InTandem. They are all filled with good people who are very welcoming to new and experienced cyclists.