Children in Chicago’s Latino communities face staggering rates of asthma and obesity. The consequences of these health disparities can shape the children’s health and well-being for a lifetime. In West Town, approximately 65 percent of children are overweight or obese. In Little Village, that number is close to 58 percent. (This compares with a national average of 26 percent.) The numbers are similarly disproportionate for asthma, which in West Town affects nearly a third of all children, more than twice the national average.

The Partnership to Reduce Disparities in Asthma and Obesity in Latino Schools was designed to empower parents and community members to bring about changes in school environmental health and wellness so that children will have the opportunity to live healthy, successful lives.

Schools have emerged as important places to address childhood asthma, obesity and other health problems. Children spend most of their waking hours outside of home at school, where they consume nearly 40 percent of their daily calories. Schools also play an important role in the life of a neighborhood; they often serve not only as educational centers but also as community, arts, and sports centers where students, teachers, parents and others get to know each other and share information.

Research shows that school-based programs that include healthy food, physical activity, nutrition education and parent involvement are effective in helping children live healthy lives. Research also shows that healthy students are better prepared to learn and succeed at school.

The CDC defines a healthy school environment as one which includes quality school meals, healthy food options for all food in schools, pleasant eating experiences, comprehensive nutrition education and physical activity and integrated health marketing. In addition to these wellness-related elements, Healthy Schools Campaign considers environmental factors such as indoor air quality at schools.

Despite the great benefits for health—and learning, health-promoting practices, policies and programs are not in place in most schools—including the schools serving communities with disproportionately high rates of childhood asthma and obesity.

The Partnership focused on public schools in two Latino neighborhoods in Chicago and grew to effect change in schools throughout the entire Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system.

One of the goals of the project was to learn how to create health-promoting change in large, urban school districts serving low-income communities of color. The CPS system serves 408,601 students at more than 650 schools. The district’s proportion of minority students is around 92 percent, and approximately 85 percent of the students are considered low-income. The district serves more than 56 million school meals per year.

Because the Partnership employed a social-ecological method of engaging parents and the community in healthy lifestyles as a method for making the district’s schools healthier places for children, the positive consequences expanded to more than the city’s classrooms. In practice, working toward this goal created change that reached beyond the schoolyard to shape neighborhood life in a way that promotes healthy lifestyles for children, families and communities.

Principles of the Project

• Healthy students are better learners.
• The school environment, including the air quality, needs to be healthy.
• The school is an important place for introducing healthy food and nutrition concepts.
• Parent, student and community involvement are important for creating healthy schools and students.

The Partnership to Reduce Disparities in Asthma and Obesity in Latino Schools brought together parents from two Latino communities in Chicago—West Town in the north and Little Village in the south—to create change in schools and the community supporting healthy eating and active lifestyles. These changes combat the staggering rates of childhood obesity and asthma that disproportionately affect families in Chicago’s Latino communities.

In a society where children spend many of their waking hours at school, parents are finding that simple but significant changes at a systems level—changes such as adding a few minutes of physical activity to the school day or offering fresh fruit at lunch—can make a difference for children’s health.

Positive, health-promoting changes in systems-level policy and school-level programs in Chicago Public Schools illustrate the success of the Partnership’s efforts to address asthma and obesity. The numbers tell the story of a project that grew rapidly through natural networks and continues to expand: more than 500 parents who joined nutrition classes; more than 300 parents who took part in community aerobics; 700 parents at a rally for healthy schools; 15 school-based wellness teams working on improved food and fitness at schools; 10,900 children attending schools with healthier environments thanks to the teams’ efforts.

But perhaps nothing explains the Partnership’s impact more clearly than the experiences of the individuals, like Rosa, who have changed their lives so profoundly since getting involved.

Throughout this report, you’ll find more stories of the mothers, teachers, advocates and community members who committed themselves to fighting disparities and creating a healthier future for their children.