This week, I reached out to friends via social media to ask a simple question: What are your community health goals and hopes for 2012?

One woman responded immediately, via Twitter: “That young people will eat healthy foods. No more daily intakes of fast food. It can kill you.”

A man responded, via Facebook: “As someone with a pre-existing condition, I want to be able to afford health insurance!”

On this blog’s Facebook page, I posted my own hopes: “Personally, I want to continue to eat local food, at home, and continue to explore our region’s beautiful outdoors. Community-wide, I hope that health becomes a right, and not a privilege.”

What are your personal and community-wide goals for health in 2012? Please share them in the comments section below!

Happy New Year and Felíz Año Nuevo!

Have we connected on Facebook and Twitter? Please ‘follow’ me or ‘like’ this blog’s page, so we can continue these discussions!

I attended a fascinating seminar on the connection between schools and health during the California Working Families Policy Summit in Sacramento last week.

The seminar emphasized how crucial of a role schools could play, if school systems participated in all possible programs, and took advantage of community resources.

Consider all of these services and benefits schools could provide to students:

1. Schools could provide children with two healthy meals a day, said Ken Hecht of California Food Policy Advocates. But many lower-income students who qualify for free- and reduced-price meals don’t take advantage of the breakfast program, he said.

For example, according to BreakfastFirst.org, 56 percent of students – or 43,367 students – who qualify for free- and reduced-price meals in Fresno Unified School District don’t eat breakfast. That means those students are missing out on a free, nutritious meal – and the school district is losing $5,551,897 in federal funds. Unbelievable!

2. Schools could also provide students – especially lower-income students who live in neighborhoods with few safe places to play- with needed physical activity.

But even as California’s childhood obesity rate increases, and as chronic diseases become more prevalent, many schools are not offering adequate physical education, said Jennifer Richard of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy.

In fact, she said, less than 50 percent of elementary schools in the state comply with P.E. mandates, often due to lack of funds or lack of gym teachers.

3. Schools could also provide needed health services, said Serena Clayton of the California School Health Centers Association.

Across the state, she said, there are 176 school-based health centers, run by a local clinic, the school district, or the local health department. The school-based health centers can provide students with flu shots and other vaccines, and can generally bring health services directly to students.

At a time when education budgets – and families’ wallets – are stretched thin, and at a time when rates of obesity and chronic diseases, as well as health disparities, are increasing, what can we do to ensure that more schools are providing these healthy resources, and more?