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The purpose of this newsletter is to provide quick contacts to KNN partner agencies and to other resources that might be helpful to our partners. You should be able to read this newsletter in less than 5 minutes – that’s our goal!

KNN July Newsletter

Welcome to the July 2004 issue of KNN’s email newsletter. Please visit our web site at www.kansasnutritionnetwork.org For our KNN partners, you can complete the “Depth of Involvement” form on-line. We are always interested in how our partners are “partnering” to improve nutrition and physical activity education throughout Kansas.
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Our Featured Link this month is the Kansas Association of Community Action Programs. Be sure to check out their website! www.kacap.org. Also check out the "View From FNS". Just click on the WHY button on the KNN website. A link to "CDCynergy" is now available under "Hot Topics", Social Marketing. www.kansasnutritionnetwork.org

Food Stamp application information is now available on line in Spanish. From the KNN website, click on “How” then “SRS Self Assessment.”

Upcoming KNN meetings: July 15 Topeka. KNN is planning to coordinate our meeting with KACAP’s Second Annual Kansas Conference on Poverty.KACAP has graciously invited their KNN Partners to attend the morning sessions on the 15th. Lunch will be provided by KACAP, courtesy of KNN.This looks like it will be a very worthwhile and important meeting both for KNN partners and for KACAP. August 31 in Manhattan for a joint meeting with FCS and KNN.
On average, low-income households spent $3.59 per capita per week on fruits and vegetables in 2000 while higher income households spent $5.02, a statistically significant difference. The findings suggest that marginal increases in income received by low-income households are not spent on additional fruits and vegetables. In contrast, increases in income received by higher income households do increase their fruit and vegetable expenditures. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/AER833/
Sesame Street and Produce for Better Health developed a program to promote fruits and vegetables, Color Way to Children. www.sesameworkshop.org. For more information, contact Lori Baer at the Produce for Better Health Foundation lbaer@5aday.org

The July issue of Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) is now available! www.cdc.gov/pcd There is a particularly interesting article on the demonstrated effectiveness in increasing fruit and vegetable intake in a low income population.

Every day, about one-fourth of U.S. adults over age 20 eat fast food and drink twice as many sugary, carbonated soft drinks as those who don't eat fast food, a new study of more than 9,000 survey respondents reports. These fast-food eaters consumed substantially higher amounts of calories, fats, carbohydrates, added sugars and proteins than their non-fast-food-eating counterparts. The study appears in the current Journal of the American College of Nutrition
Emergency providers help low income households put food on the table. In 2003, USDA spent $41.7 billion on 15 food assistance programs aimed at improving the nutrition and well-being of needy Americans. The Food Stamp Program, the largest of the programs, served over 21 million people, and 16.4 million school children received free or reduced-price lunches from the National School Lunch Program. Yet, 4.3 million American households visited a food pantry, and 1.1 million people ate a meal at an emergency kitchen in a typical month in 2001. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Amberwaves/June04/Features/EmergencyProv.htm
The University of California has sent out a news release about the results of a study just published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The study found that those who started dieting before age 14 were more than twice as likely to have dieted more than 20 times when compared with women who began dieting later in life. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/06/09_fatdieting.shtml
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's
Health (OWH) and the Advertising Council launched a new national campaign that encourages first-time mothers to breastfeed exclusively for six months. "Babies were born to be breastfed," the campaign tag line, memorably summarizes the clear recommendation contained in the new public service announcements (PSAs). The PSAs are available at www.4woman.gov or www.adcouncil.org

For FRAC's February posting on "Renaming the Food Stamp Program":
http://www.frac.org/html/news/fsp/fspnamechange.htm

National Institutes of Health launches expanded health information web site.
http://health.nih.gov/ The web site offers easier and broader access to NIH’s valuable resources. And, while you’re on the web, stop in at the CDC web site for additional health resources www.cdc.gov

The following appeared on a national listserve: Kansas: Revised Food Stamp Rules Breaking Stigma. Hungry Kansas residents may now apply for food stamps at Dillons Food Stores. The internet and fax give applicants even more options. Janet Schalansky, secretary of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, hopes these changes will reduce the stigma of applying directly at the SRS office and keep poor and elderly Kansans from having to choose between rent, medicine, or eating. Kansas has also moved from a paper coupon to a debit-like card for benefits. The goal is to help people who are eligible for food stamps receive them. If everyone who qualified for food stamps enrolled, Kansans would receive an additional $102 million in federal aid. According to the Kansas Health Institute, 1 in 10 households did not have enough to eat at some point in 2000. Among households that lacked food, 63 percent borrowed or received food from others, 30 percent sent their children to eat at other people's homes, and 23 percent went to a food pantry or church for help.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/8914889.htm?
ERIGHTS=-1115700025349277253kansascity

 

I think our 5 minutes is just about up. Send an email to Karen Fitzgerald kfitzger@ksu.edu if you have information you want to include in next month’s KNN email newsletter.
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