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“Junk Food, Junk Health!”
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MPHA
President Harold Cox speaks out against soda and
junk food in
schools |
It was an unusual
scene in front of the State House on May 30. MPHA
President Harold Cox stood beside two enormous bags of
empty 20-ounce soda bottles, packages of sugar piled on
a table in front of him, as he led a crowd of people in
a chant, “Junk food, junk health!”
The bottles – about 365
of them – represent how much soda teenagers drink in a
year, and the mounds of sugar – 127 cups – how much they
consume from soda alone. The occasion for this
startling display was a press event held prior to the
hearing for H.2168, “An Act to Promote Proper School
Nutrition,” model legislation to prohibit the sale of
junk food and sugary drinks in schools. MPHA helped
craft the bill in cooperation with its chief sponsor,
Representative Peter Koutoujian.
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Seven
bags of sugar represent the amount of sugar the
average teenager consumes from soda
alone | Both the press
event and public hearing were a strong public kick-off
for our campaign to pass the bill this
session. Already, MPHA has garnered over 70
organizational endorsements, from hospitals to teachers
unions to local school committees ( click
here to view the bill’s fact sheet, list of
endorsers, and endorsement form). An array of
television cameras were on hand to film Cox, DPH
Commissioner John Auerbach, Rep. Koutoujian, and dozens
of students, parents, school officials, and health
experts demonstrating their support for preventing
childhood obesity.
At the public hearing,
Vivien Morris, MPHA board member and chair of our Food
and Nutrition Section, testified in favor of the bill,
along with panelists from the School Nutrition
Association, the Massachusetts Nurses Association,
Children’s Hospital Boston, the Massachusetts Coalition
of School-Based Health Centers, the Massachusetts
Medical Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the
Massachusetts Teachers Association, and parents from
central and western Massachusetts.
For more information,
or to get involved, contact Eric Weltman at MPHA:
617-524-6696, ext. 111; eweltman@mphaweb.org.
Public Health Budget
Action
This week, legislative
leaders continue to meet to iron out differences between
the Senate and House budgets. And MPHA continues to
marshal its array of advocacy tools in support of public
health funding in the Fiscal Year 2008 budget – from
one-on-one meetings with legislators and staff, to email
alerts to the public health community, from
coalition-building to mobilizing grassroots support at
the local level.
The House and Senate
proposed different levels of funding for several
important Department of Public Health programs ( click
here for the list). In reconciling these
differences, MPHA is advocating that the Conference
Committee, comprised of three senators and three
representatives, choose the higher level of funding for
each program.
To send an email to
your legislators, click
here. To read MPHA’s latest budget action alert
discussing our top priorities, click
here. To read MPHA’s letter to the legislature,
click
here.
For more information,
or to get involved, please contact Geoff Wilkinson at
MPHA: 617-524-6696, ext. 100; gwilkinson@mphaweb.org.
Strengthening Our
Communities Rally
On Thursday, June 21,
Governor Deval Patrick is hosting a rally at the State
House in support of his Municipal Partnership
Act. The “Strengthening Our Communities” rally is
from 1:00 – 2:15 pm in front of the Grand
Staircase.
MPHA has endorsed two
proposals by the Patrick Administration to generate
needed revenue for public services. The first, a
package of corporate tax loophole closures, would bring
money to the state while increasing the fairness of our
tax system. The second, the Municipal Partnership
Act, would grant cities and towns the option to levy a
local meals tax of up to 2 percent and increase the
local hospitality tax by 1 percent, as well as close a
tax loophole for telecommunications companies.
The revenue proposals
are being backed by a broad coalition of community
groups, labor unions, and health and human services
organizations. MPHA urges its members to support
Governor Patrick’s efforts to invest in health,
education, and other important public programs.
For more information,
or to get involved, please contact Eric Weltman at MPHA:
617-524-6696, ext. 111; eweltman@mphaweb.org.
Welcome Terry
Mason!
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Terry
Mason,
Deputy Director for
Program and
Policy | MPHA is
pleased to announce the hiring of Terry Mason,
PhD, as our new Deputy Director for Program
and Policy. Terry comes to MPHA from Physicians
for Human Rights, where she worked on global AIDS
prevention. Previously, she worked for nearly
fifteen years at Abt Associates on a wide range of
public health issues and served as a research fellow at
the University of Massachusetts McCormack
Institute. At MPHA, Terry will be leading
research on our work with the Community Health Workers
Initiative of Boston and providing policy support
on issues including childhood healthy weight. She
will also be organizing educational events and
managing our intern recruitment program. To
get in touch with Terry, call 617-524-6696, ext.
103, or send messages to tmason@mphaweb.org.
Environmental and Occupational
Health Section
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Polly
Hoppin, Environmental Health Section, and BU
School of Public Health Professor Tom
Webster | On May
30, several dozen people joined MPHA’s Environmental and
Occupational Health Section for its quarterly
meeting. The meeting featured a forum “Measuring
Chemicals in People,” about the emerging use of
biomonitoring to detect miniscule levels of toxic
chemicals in people. Lending their expertise to the
forum were Tom Webster, Associate Professor in the
Department of Environmental Health at the Boston
University School of Public Health and Jessica Nelson,
Coordinator of the Boston Consensus Conference on
Biomonitoring.
The section has
established three sub-groups to work on policy, public
education, and community assistance. For more
information, or to get involved, please contact Eric
Weltman at MPHA: 617-524-6696, ext. 111; eweltman@mphaweb.org.
Central Massachusetts
Organizing
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Joanne
Treistman, Senator Harriette Chandler, Dawn Clark,
Margot Barnet during the Alliance for a Healthy
Tomorrow’s Mother’s Day
Lobby | On May 10,
MPHA Central Massachusetts regional committee members
participated in the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow’s
Mother’s Day Lobby, delivering 600 postcards to
legislators and Governor Patrick in support of the Safer
Alternatives Bill. Joanne Treistman, an MPHA
regional committee member and epidemiologist, spoke at a
State House rally about the importance of using safer
alternatives to toxic chemicals. We held meetings with
Senators Chandler and Augustus, who committed to
providing testimony in support of the bill at its June
11 hearing.
On May 30, MPHA
activist Jennifer Moiles, a Worcester public school
parent, testified at the State House in support of the
School Nutrition Bill. Moiles said the bill
provided a good start and highlighted the need for even
more comprehensive measures to promote healthy eating by
children and families.
Also in May, Barbara
Nealon from the Greater Gardner Area Interagency Team
(GAIT) facilitated a discussion about MPHA expanding
work into North Worcester County. GAIT is committed to
the coordination and improvement of health and human
services in the Greater Gardner Area.
For more information,
or to get involved, please contact Sara Kanevsky at
MPHA: 508-414-0976; sara.kanevsky@gmail.com.
Western Massachusetts
Organizing
The grand opening of
the greenhouse at Holyoke’s Sullivan Elementary School
was a huge success!
The event, held on May
23, was a celebration of the hard work and community
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Students from the Sullivan School celebrate
the greenhouse
opening | involvement
of the Project GreenUp Community
Coalition. Coalition members included MPHA, WGBY
Television, and the Holyoke YMCA and their CONNECTIONS
Garden Program. The coalition mobilized the
involvement of MPHA members, parents, teachers,
residents, and most importantly, students at the
school.
And what a celebration
it was! We had arts and crafts, healthy food, plantings
at the greenhouse, and many other activities for the
over 80 children in attendance. Music was provided
by the school’s percussion band lead by local Latin Jazz
luminary and music teacher Jose Rodriguez. MPHA
members Kenneth Franklin and Carmel Kelly, and
Connections gardens instructor Kristen Ketler were
formally recognized for their contributions to the
projects. A curriculum to teach basic math,
botany, and nutrition through the greenhouse project
will soon be available to the community.
Western Massachusetts
also had strong representation at the May 30 hearing on
the School Nutrition Bill. Andrew Morehouse,
executive director of the Western Massachusetts Food
Bank, and Eduardo Suarez of Amherst, an MPHA member and
parent of two children, made the trip to Boston to
testify in favor of the bill.
The Western
Massachusetts region is looking forward to our dialogue
with DPH Commissioner John Auerbach during his visits to
the area. Auerbach will be bring his regional
conversations to western Massachusetts on Wednesday,
June 13 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. at the Ralph J. Froio
Senior Center, at 330 North Street, Pittsfield, and
Thursday, June 14 from 4:00 – 6:00 pm at Springfield
Technical Community College, One Armory Square,
Springfield.
For more information,
or to get involved, please contact A.J. Juarez at MPHA:
413-750-2060; ellis6065@charter.net.
Creating Healthy Lifestyles as We
Age
On May 23, over 325
people attended the 18th Annual Western Massachusetts
Elder Care Conference. The conference featured a
keynote speech by Helen Caulton-Harris, Director of the
Springfield Department of Health and Human
Services. Conference attendees had several dozen
workshops to choose from ranging in topic from emergency
preparedness to mental illness to compulsive
hoarding. MPHA is a co-sponsor and lead organizer
of the conference.
Renew your membership
today!MPHA has won important
victories in recent months and your voice and your
membership were critical to these victories. We have an
ambitious agenda laid out for the coming months and we
need your continued support. Please take a moment
to renew your membership, online
or by mail,
today! For more information, contact Kara Keenan:
617-524-6696 ext.113; kkeenan@mphaweb.org.
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