The USDA announced yesterday that it will be launching a new food icon on June 2 that will replace the food pyramid currently used to guide Americans' eating habits. The use of the term "food icon" hints that the shape may no longer be a pyramid, the symbol that has been used since 1992 to illustrate the basics of healthy eating.
(If you are interested in the history of the food pyramid, take a look at this informative illustration from The Washington Post.)
The pyramid received a makeover in 2005, including the addition of a staircase to remind Americans to incorporate physical activity in their everyday lives. This version, called MyPyramid, has been used by nutrition educators all across the U.S. since its debut.
SOSMentor currently uses MyPyramid in our nutrition education, so this news impacts us greatly. According to the USDA press release, the new food icon "will provide consumers with easy-to-understand recommendations, a new website with expanded information, and other tools and resources."
We look forward to the launch, and will keep you updated when the new food icon is released!
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” The Antelope Valley high school students participating in SOSMentor’s ShapeUp program are learning this firsthand, as they reap the feel-good benefits of helping younger students.
This Spring, we brought the ShapeUp program to the Children’s Center of the Antelope Valley in Lancaster, which provides a variety of services to child victims of abuse, children at risk of abuse, and their families. In the program, 6 adult mentors, including Registered Dietitian Marina Carrillo-Infante, taught our nutrition curriculum to 6 high school students. The high school students then mentored 8 elementary school students, teaching them what they learned about nutrition and fitness.
The small size of this particular program allowed the high school students to become close with their younger mentees, and in turn, to learn a lot themselves. To demonstrate the excessive sugar load in beverages such as juice and soda, the participants measured out the sugar, one tablespoon at a time.
By the end of the program, the high school students had gained confidence and satisfaction from serving as mentors. One high school student said, “This made me feel like a role model. The kids looking up to me made me feel proud.” Another student said, “I helped the little kids make healthier choices in life, so I know I’m helping the next generation of children.”
We are so pleased that our students are not only learning about good nutrition and healthy living through our ShapeUp program, but also about the value of serving others.
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s FRUIT MAN!
That’s right, Fruit Man is the newest superhero on the scene, thanks to students in the Drama Club at William Jefferson Clinton Middle School. Their teacher, Ransford Doherty, helped them create a clever video that shares what they learned during SOSMentor’s LAUSD Healthy Schools Campaign. The result is the fun, incredibly creative, must-see video below!
Dressed in colorful capes and superhero gear, each student represents a food group from MyPyramid: fruits; vegetables; meats, beans, seeds, and nuts; grains; milk; and oils. Using creativity, originality, and humor, the students teach us about each food group in a memorable way.
Take the story of “Vegetable Girl,” for example. Right as a student is about to dig into a “snack,” consisting of chocolate, pizza, and hard candy, Vegetable Girl saves the day by shouting “WTV?!” The student is perplexed, but Vegetable Girl clarifies: “Where’s the vegetable?” She then magically produces a vegetable bowl for the hungry student to enjoy.
Later on, a student opens up a newspaper and is shocked to see “Super Grain Kid” start talking from within the pages of the Sports section! Super Grain Kid reminds us that just like Kobe beef is not the same as Kobe Bryant, and The Rock is not the same as a rock, just because bread is brown doesn’t mean it’s whole wheat.
SOSMentor is so proud to see our students engaging the material in our curriculum and finding ways to share it with a broader audience. The purpose of our poster contest is to encourage students to come up with a creative, artistic way to illustrate the information in our program, and the kids at Clinton Middle School did just that with their awesome video.
To recognize these students for going above and beyond, SOSMentor will present them with a special award at our Poster Contest Awards Reception & Dinner on June 13, featuring special guest speakers Superintendent John Deasy and celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck.
Share this video with your friends, family, and any children you know today!
SOSMentor is excited to announce that Wolfgang Puck will be the celebrity guest speaker at our Poster Contest Awards Reception & Dinner on June 13! Wolfgang will join our staff, partners, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, and other dignitaries in honoring the students who took part in the LAUSD Healthy Schools Campaign poster contest.
Wolfgang Puck’s philosophy, Eat, Love, Live ™ (WELL) aligns perfectly with SOSMentor’s mission of improving student health by teaching kids about the cornerstones of a healthy lifestyle: making good food choices and staying physically active. Wolfgang’s culinary approach, which incorporates “only the freshest and most natural and organic ingredients available,” not only promotes good health but also tastes good. For this reason, Wolfgang Puck is a household name.
A Los Angeles resident, Wolfgang is also active in the community, working with organizations such as Meals on Wheels, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Children’s Diabetes Foundation, and Make-A-Wish Foundation. He is an excellent role model not only for our students, but for the entire L.A. community.
SOSMentor is thrilled to have Wolfgang Puck as our special guest at St. Vincent Medical Center on June 13. Our students’ creativity and leadership in getting the word out about healthy eating and exercise has been incredible, and we look forward to giving them the recognition they deserve at an event that is sure to memorable.
Interested in volunteering at the June 13 event? Contact Jasmin Hooker at Jasmin@SOSMentor.org or (818) 222-4243.
On Monday, 31 highly esteemed judges gathered at the LAUSD Administrative Offices in Downtown LA to view the top posters submitted by the finalists in the LAUSD Healthy Schools Campaign poster contest.
The diversity of the Los Angeles community was reflected by the guests at the event – LAUSD Superintendent Dr. John Deasy, Beyond the Bell and L.A. Department of Transportation staff, an L.A. Marathon organizer, SOSMentor board members, athletes and artists were all in attendance!
Supt. Deasy expressed how important the issue of youth health is in Los Angeles, and thanked everyone for addressing this issue through the LAUSD Healthy Schools Campaign.
Though it was an early morning event, our guests were bright-eyed and ready to judge the posters thanks to coffee donated by the folks at Don Francisco. Everyone enjoyed healthy snacks while discussing the nutrition and fitness messages conveyed in the students’ posters. Each judge chose their 4 favorite posters from the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
The event heated up when several posters ended up tying after the initial tallying of votes! After the intense tie-breakers, we finally identified the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners, and honorable mentions for elementary, middle, and high school. The winners will be announced at our Awards Reception & Dinner on June 13 at St. Vincent Medical Center.
Thank you to all the judges who participated in Monday's event!
It’s no secret that kids love to play. Whether it’s riding bikes, skateboarding, playing soccer, or a simple game of hopscotch, being active is fun and often comes naturally when we’re young.
As we get older, we sometimes think of exercise as drudgery – a chore that we have to do to stay healthy. High school students in the LAUSD Healthy Schools Campaign mentoring program at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex remind us to think more like kids and focus on how much fun physical activity can be. (See the video below!)
Thanks to their health teacher, Mr. Matt French, the school nurse, Marissa Moscoso, and volunteer mentor Anita Wickramasinghe, the students are learning and sharing their knowledge about physical activity. Here are a few of the ninth graders’ suggestions for making exercise feel more like play time:
Dance! Turn on your favorite music and break a sweat. You can do this with friends or (if you don’t feel confident in your dance skills!), you can simply do it in the privacy of your bedroom.
Do whatever it is that you enjoy. That way, your 60 minutes a day of physical activity will be a pleasant experience, rather than another task on your to-do list.
Get outside! Exercise doesn’t have to take place at the gym. A great way to save money and enjoy our wonderful Southern California weather is to get outdoors and get active.
Change your attitude. Instead of thinking of exercise as a punishment or something you dread, remind yourself of the great benefits you’re getting: better health, increased stamina, improved confidence, the post-workout rush of endorphins…the list goes on!
Your options for physical activity are limited only by your imagination. Be creative, and most of all…have fun!
Last week, we filled you in on our Poster Contest Judging Event taking place on May 16th, where our special guest judges will determine the winners of our LAUSD Healthy Schools Campaign poster contest. Hundreds of elementary, middle, and high school students have submitted their posters, artistically illustrating healthy messages about good nutrition and physical activity, and the 32 finalists have been chosen. Take a look at some of the top posters in the video below!
SOSMentor is excited to announce that our Poster Contest Awards Reception & Dinner will take place on June 13th! We are anticipating 200 attendees, including our students and their families, representatives from our partner organizations (LAUSD Beyond the Bell Branch, LAUSD School Nursing Services, St. Vincent Medical Center, and NEWtritious), and special guests such as LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy!
We believe every child who takes a stand against childhood obesity is a winner, so each and every one of the finalists will be receiving a prize for their leadership and creativity at the Awards Reception. Each student will get 4 tickets to the event so that their closest loved ones can be there to celebrate with them! And of course, our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners for elementary, middle, and high school will receive their prizes: 4 tickets to Disneyland for 1st place, a bicycle for 2nd, and a sports gift card for 3rd.
Stay tuned to our blog for more information in the coming weeks as our event planning progresses!
Here at SOSMentor, we are wrapping up the LAUSD Healthy Schools Campaign, an unprecedented effort to raise awareness about nutrition and fitness in L.A. schools. We are proud to say that our partnership with LAUSD Beyond the Bell Branch, LAUSD School Nursing Services, St. Vincent Medical Center, and NEWtritious was successful in bringing our innovative nutrition education to over 28,000 students in 700 schools!
The culmination of months of hard work by our staff, partners, school nurses, teachers, and mentors is a district-wide poster contest open to students of all ages. We are excited to announce that the Poster Contest Judging Event will take place on Monday, May 16th at the LAUSD Administrative Offices in Downtown L.A.
Hundreds of elementary, middle, and high school students have submitted posters that creatively illustrate a healthy message about nutrition and physical activity. To see the cream of the crop, check out the video below!
To qualify, students were required to turn in a “Students Teaching Parents” worksheet with their poster submission. After teaching their parents what they learned during the campaign, the students quizzed them on healthy eating, better shopping and cooking choices, and ideas for exercising together as a family.
The Students Teaching Parents requirement is an important element of the poster contest, because it empowers the students to be leaders and health advocates within their own families and community. It ensures that the students pass on the healthy messages they are learning.
For example, Jozef G. Rico, Jr. a 5th grader at Bryson Elementary, submitted his mother Maria Rico's response to how we can make healthier food shopping choices: "Upon going to the local market, as a family, we discuss what items are good for the body."
Beyond the Bell staff and school nurses chose the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place poster contest winners at each elementary, middle, and high school throughout LAUSD. The 1st place winner then advanced to the second round of judging at the Beyond the Bell field office, which you can see in the above video.
In the district-wide judging on May 16th, the final 32 posters will be on display for our special guest judges – including LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, local business leaders, and other dignitaries. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners for elementary, middle, and high school will be recognized and rewarded at the Poster Contest Awards Reception & Dinner on June 13th at St. Vincent Medical Center.
Stay tuned to our blog for more details on the Awards Reception & Dinner in the days to come!
