Latest News for August 2007

August 28
Top donors call Katrina recovery slow

On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, top donors call recovery slow.

Top donors call Katrina recovery slow; Second anniversary of Katrina tomorrow
By Laurence Arnold
The Boston Globe - Bloomberg News
August 28, 2007

Four of the largest US foundations, which have given a combined $131.8 million to rebuild Gulf Coast communities destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, say the effort is proving to be a slow and difficult slog, a new survey says.

While corporations focused most of their giving on immediate relief programs, foundations are supporting longer-range efforts to restore schools, libraries, healthcare facilities, and economic development.

“Those engaged in longer-term recovery and rebuilding activities felt that those efforts would require a lot more time — generally much longer than they had initially expected,” the New York City-based Foundation Center said in its report yesterday.

Still, some top foundations are digging in for the long haul and adapting to the evolving needs of New Orleans and other shattered communities, said Steven Lawrence, senior director of research at the Foundation Center.

He cited the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which as of June had given $37.2 million to Gulf Coast causes.

Initially the Gates Foundation, which has made the development of libraries one of its global priorities, focused on reopening storm-damaged libraries in Louisiana and Mississippi. This year it gave $7.1 million to Oxfam America, an antipoverty group promoting affordable housing and workers’ rights in the region.

“One of my hopes for this report is that it encourages foundations to remain active in the region, and perhaps encourages some foundations to come back,” Lawrence said in an interview. “There’s tremendous opportunity to build a civil society that didn’t exist before in this region. That really is an amazing impact that foundations can have.”

Major foundations struggled early on because they lacked preexisting relationships with nonprofit organizations in the Gulf Coast region and also had to navigate “often divisive governmental and community politics, primarily in Louisiana,” the report says.

Linetta Gilbert, a program officer at the Ford Foundation, told the report’s authors that in retrospect, “more of us who were going to be responsible for making grants should have gone to the affected areas to just try on the clothing of the region, instead of having people calling us to tell us what was happening.”

Gilbert was among officials at 10 foundations who described their experiences in the Gulf Coast region in interviews with the Foundation Center.

“I think that we’ve made some progress, but the recovery in this region is going to take dramatically longer than many of us would have thought or had hoped two years ago,” said John Lumpkin, senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The group, based in Princeton, N.J., had given $18 million to Gulf Coast rebuilding as of June, mostly to healthcare efforts. The Gates Foundation, based in Seattle and founded by Microsoft Corp. chairman William Gates III and his wife, Melinda, was the top giver to the Gulf Coast as of June, according to the report.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, with headquarters in Battle Creek, Mich., was next at $36.3 million, much of which was for healthcare for school-age children and their families.

The Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis, run by the family of the founder of Eli Lilly & Co., gave a total of $30 million to the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the United Way of America. The New York-based Ford Foundation made 89 donations, totaling $28.4 million, to various relief and recovery programs.

Overall, US foundations and corporations have donated $906.4 million, or 14 percent of the total $6.5 billion in private giving to Gulf Coast relief and rebuilding, the report said.

The top corporate donors are Chevron Corp., which gave $26 million; Starkey Laboratories, $25 million; and Exxon Mobil Corp., $24 million. The American Red Cross was the top recipient of foundation and corporate money, with almost $200 million.

It got 31 percent of the donations given by companies, and 10 percent of donations given by foundations.

August 28
U.S. Obesity Rates Continue to Rise

Obesity rates continued their climb in 31 states last year. No state showed a decline.

U.S. Obesity Rates Continue to Rise
Associated Press
August 27, 2007

Mississippi became the first state to crack the 30% barrier for adult residents considered to be obese. West Virginia and Alabama are just slightly behind, according to the Trust for America’s Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.

Colorado continued its reign as the leanest state in the nation with an obesity rate projected at 17.6%.

This year’s report, for the first time, looked at obesity rates among children ages 10 to 17. The District of Columbia had the highest percentage — 22.8%. Utah had the lowest percentage of obese youth — 8.5%.

Officials at the Trust for America’s Health advocate for the government to play a larger role in preventing obesity. People who are overweight are at an increased risk for diabetes, heart problems and other chronic diseases that contribute to greater health care costs.

“It’s one of those issues where everyone believes this is an epidemic, but it’s not getting the level of political and policy-maker attention that it ought to,” said Jeffrey Levi, the organization’s executive director. “As every candidate for president talks about health-care reform and controlling health care cost costs, if we don’t hone in on this issue, none of their proposals are going to be affordable.”

At the same time, many believe weight is a personal choice and responsibility. Mr. Levi doesn’t dispute that notion, but he said society can help people make good choices.

“If we want kids to eat healthier food, we have to invest the money for school nutrition programs so that school lunches are healthier,” he said. “If we want people to be more physically active, then there have to be safe places to be active. That’s not just a class issues. We’ve designed suburban communities where there are no sidewalks for anybody to go out and take a walk.”

To measure obesity rates, Trust for America’s Health compares data from 2003-2005 with 2004-2006. It combines data from three years to improve the accuracy of projections. The data come from a survey of height and weight taken over the telephone by state health departments.

Generally, anyone with a body mass index greater than 30 is considered obese. The index is a ratio that takes into account height and weight. The overweight range is 25 to 29.9. Normal is 18.5 to 24.9. People with a large amount of lean muscle mass, such as athletes, can show a large body mass index without having an unhealthy level of fat.

A lack of exercise is a huge factor in obesity rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found last year that more than 22% of Americans did not engage in any physical activity in the past month. The percentage is greater than 30% in four states: Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Meanwhile, Minnesotans led the way when it came to exercise. An estimated 15.4% of the state’s residents did not engage an any physical exercise, the best rate in the nation. Still, the state ranked 28th overall when it came to the percentage of obese adults.

Another factor in obesity rates is poverty. The five poorest states were all in the top 10 when it came to obesity rates. An exception to that rule was the District of Columbia and New Mexico. Both had high poverty rates, but also one of the better obesity rates among adults.

August 20

Study says obese schoolchildren have higher absentee rates

By Joann Loviglio
Associated Press Writer
August 16, 2007

Obese elementary schoolchildren miss a couple more school days on average than their normal-weight classmates, according to a study that says being fat is a better predictor for absenteeism than any other factor.

Researchers said their results suggest that childhood obesity, in addition to serious medical issues, can lead to a plethora of additional problems down the road. “It’s clear in all the literature that the more days of school you miss, it really sets you up for such negative outcomes: drugs and AIDS and (teen) pregnancy,” said Andrew B. Geier, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and lead author of the study released Friday.

He said the findings should serve as a clarion call to school officials. “At this early age to show that already they’re missing school, and missing school is such a major setup for big-time problems, that’s something school policy people have to know,” Geier said.

The researchers from Penn and Temple University looked at 1,069 fourth- to sixth-graders for one academic year in nine Philadelphia schools, where teachers took attendance each morning. Based on body mass index, a standard measure of height and weight, each child was classified as underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese.

Of 180 school days, researchers found that on average the normal weight students missed 10.1 days, overweight kids missed 10.9 days and obese children missed 12.2 days. For reasons that aren’t clear, underweight children had the fewest absences - 7.5 on average.

In decades of research about student performance, race, socioeconomic status, age and gender have been tagged as the top predictors for absenteeism. The new study, in the latest issue of the journal Obesity, concludes that weight tops them all, Geier said.

The study didn’t explore why the children missed school. Researchers theorize it’s got less to do with medical issues - many children at this young age haven’t yet developed major obesity-linked maladies - and more to do with the stigma of being fat.

“They’re missing school because they don’t want to be bullied and called names,” Geier said.

Researchers tried to make the test group as homogeneous as possible by picking schools that were among the city’s poorest, with the assumption that education and income levels would be fairly even.

Nationally, obesity rates have nearly quintupled among 6- to 11-year-olds and tripled among teens and children ages 2 to 5 since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, sleep apnea and orthopedic problems.

The study adds to growing research into non-medical complications of being fat, including data suggesting that obese adults miss more workdays and go to college less frequently than people of normal weight, Geier said.

“This is exactly the kind of study that will get the attention of policy makers,” said Jim Bogden, healthy eating project coordinator for the National Association of State Boards of Education. “The correlation with absenteeism is very powerful.” He likened the results to studies linking academic achievement to participation in school breakfast programs - research that prompted lots of schools to start offering such programs. In this case, changes could include anything from improving nutrition education and cafeteria offerings to getting parents to serve healthy meals at home.

“Those of us working in school health do all we can to publicize this information, and it seems to be starting to sink in,” Bogden said.

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August 17
Share Our Strength Signs Memorandum of Understanding with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Share Our Strength and the CDC will be partnering to work together to develop and improve health outcomes for the over 12 million American children at risk of hunger.

Share Our Strength officially entered a three-year partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 24th in Atlanta by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Share Our Strength is the first anti-hunger organization to establish such a relationship with the CDC. The MOU outlines the two organizations’ mutual intent to work together to develop and improve health outcomes for the over 12 million American children at risk of hunger, address childhood obesity and hunger particularly among low-income families, and attend to disparities in nutrition and obesity prevention and control.

Share Our Strength executives represented the organization at the signing, which took place during an internal meeting of the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity. There, along with the CDC Director of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, Dr. William Dietz, they discussed their interest to increase the availability of high-quality, nutritious, and satisfying food for all children in low-income communities.

August 10
Serve Breakfast in Class Advocates for Poor Urge

Advocates for poor children urged the city’s Department of Education to serve free breakfast in classrooms, saying that the practice of serving it in cafeterias failed to attract most of the children who need it.

By JULIE BOSMAN
The New York Times
August 8, 2007

At a news conference outside City Hall, Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, cited a study released yesterday examining nearly two dozen school districts that provide breakfast to students. Only 29 percent of New York’s schoolchildren who receive free or reduced-price school lunches also eat school breakfasts, according to the study.

In Portland, Ore., the study found, 98 percent of eligible students ate free breakfasts, and in Newark, 94 percent did. They both serve breakfasts in class.

“Out of 23 big-city school districts around the United States, New York City is second to last,” Mr. Berg said. Chicago is last.

The Department of Education said yesterday that it would consider the proposal.

Participation in the city’s breakfast program has increased since 2003, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg introduced free breakfast for every public school student, said Margie Feinberg, a department spokeswoman. Participation was 20.3 percent for the 2006-7 school year, compared with 14 percent in 2003, she said.

Studies have demonstrated that children who are hungry do not perform as well in school as others do.

The study released yesterday, by the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington advocacy group, suggested that where school meals are served could greatly affect participation. Eating breakfast in the cafeteria can be stigmatizing for children who do not want to appear impoverished in front of their peers, it found. And some children do not arrive at school early enough to get breakfast in the cafeteria.

Some school districts have tried to circumvent that issue by serving “grab and go” meals, wheeling carts with prepackaged meals into hallways or onto playgrounds so children can pick up a meal and eat it in the cafeteria, the classroom or elsewhere in school. Other schools serve a “second-chance breakfast,” or a meal after the first period.

Most of the cost of New York’s breakfast program is covered by a federal subsidy. A typical breakfast may be waffles with turkey bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese on a whole wheat English muffin, or bagels.

The department has begun a “grab and go” pilot program in several high schools, and is exploring the possibility of expanding it, Ms. Feinberg said.

Logistics may be an obstacle. Ms. Feinberg said the millions of meals the department serves each year — both breakfast and lunch — are rivaled in number only by the United States armed forces.

August 8
School's on break, not appetite

In Baltimore, 20 locations serve free lunch to kids during summer vacation.

By Alia Malik
Baltimore Sun
August 6, 2007

Tomas Belizaire received free lunches last year as a second-grader at Mount Royal Elementary/Middle School. And now that it’s summer, the free meals keep coming.

A week into summer break, he started attending day camp at the Crispus Attucks Police Athletic League Center, where the food and activities are free.

Tomas is one of 985 children who receive free meals every day through a “Healthy Meals, Happy Kids” program sponsored by the Maryland Food Bank and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Baltimore Moms on a Mission Squad. The Food Bank sends meals to 19 sites in the city and one in Baltimore County, up from six last year.

Last year, participation in summer meal programs increased 15 percent in Maryland, making it the state with the fourth-highest growth rate for such programs, accorded to USDA statistics.

Families who depend on free meals for their children during the school year are often stretched for money in the summer, Food Bank officials said.

“When school is out, they end up hungry if there aren’t programs like this,” said Food Bank program manager Lavonzell Nicholson.

“There’s a huge need in Baltimore City right now,” she said.

Last year in Maryland, 206,000 children received free or reduced-price lunches, USDA numbers show. About 50,000 continued to receive free meals during the summer of 2006.

In Baltimore, 85 percent of public school students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, Nicholson said.

Sites receiving USDA money to give away food must check children’s eligibility unless the site is in an area where more than 50 percent of students receive school lunch assistance. All of the Food Bank’s sites, which are scattered throughout lower- and middle-income areas of the city, serve any child who asks for food.

The program also works to combat child obesity, Nicholson said, because healthy food is often more expensive.

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