A $51,000 federal grant will fund a joint project between the Rutgers [Food Innovation] Center and the state Department of Agriculture. The project, which will run for about one year, aims to pair local produce with local schools in an attempt to create meals that are healthy, grown in the state and kid-approved.

For the first time in more than three decades, obesity rates for white and Asian children are falling in California, and they seem to have leveled off for Hispanic kids - all good signs that public health campaigns aimed at keeping young people away from unhealthful sweets and fatty foods are starting to work, according to a UCSF study. The bad news is that those programs don't seem to be reaching all children.

Editor’s Note: The study described in this article was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its national program, Active Living Research.

At the Mi Quisqueya Market on Saturday morning, shoppers entering the store and checking out at the cash register are surrounded by displays of high-fat potato chips and bottles of Coke, Sunny D, and other sweetened beverages. But not for long.

According to Debbie Erlandson, Childhood Obesity Coordinator for South Jersey Healthcare (SJH), 40 to 50 percent of children in the county, at least in certain age groups, are obese or overweight… That’s why Erlandson, a pediatric nurse by training, has been teaching local parents the saving merits of healthy diets at the Carlls Corner Bottino’s ShopRite. She’s an instructor for the free iHealthy Family program, which along with iHealthy Kid is a joint effort by SJH and ShopRite targeting unhealthy diets and lifestyles.

Mayor Richard Daley and Walgreen Co. officials touted progress Wednesday in the city's push to wipe out "food deserts" in Chicago. The Deerfield-based drugstore chain is adding fresh fruit and vegetables at four stores by next week, bringing to 10 the number of such outposts on the city's South and West sides. Those impoverished areas of Chicago have been plagued by the lack of grocery stores after major chains closed some locations over the years.

The farm stand is becoming the new apothecary, dispensing apples — not to mention artichokes, asparagus and arugula — to fill a novel kind of prescription. Doctors at three health centers in Massachusetts have begun advising patients to eat “prescription produce” from local farmers’ markets, in an effort to fight obesity in children of low-income families. Now they will give coupons amounting to $1 a day for each member of a patient’s family to promote healthy meals.

More than a third of Birmingham city residents live in an area where they don't have easy access to healthy food, according to a study that will be presented today.

Henderson County apples. Hydroponic lettuce from Madison County. North Carolina-grown sweet potatoes. These aren't menu items at a downtown restaurant. They're some of the fresh, locally grown produce gracing school lunch menus this year.

Toys that have been synonymous with kids' meals at fast-food restaurants could soon be banned in San Francisco under a new law proposed Tuesday if the food contains too much fat, sugar or salt.

Drivers on South Chicago Avenue near 73rd Street notice something turning green, and it's not just the traffic light. It's something beautiful and edible. "In the midst of a big street, you turn around, and then there's a farm," said Joshua Jackson, 16. It's a new community garden, where Jackson and dozens of fellow teenagers at the Gary Comer Youth Center are helping to turn 15,000 square feet of blight — about a third of an acre — in the Greater Grand Crossing community into fruit trees, nut trees, landscape plants, collard greens, mustard greens, pole beans and more. And it's all organic.

Buffalo mom Cheryl Clark knows what it's like to worry about her child's wellness -- and be frustrated about how to change unhealthy habits. That's why Clark and her son, Troy, 12, were thrilled to learn about a new fitness program started by the doctors at Allentown Pediatrics. It's a walk in the park -- literally.

[Chef Tony] Geraci and hundreds of other chefs across the country are signing up for the government's Chefs Move to Schools initiative, which encourages culinary experts to share their expertise with local schools.

There is an oasis emerging amid the food deserts that once cut wide swaths across areas on the city's South and West sides. The evidence is in recent headlines and initiatives undertaken by both the city and private retailers.

One day in April, Durango students sat down to a lunch that included Tuscan blend vegetables, a choice of fresh fruit and a salad bar. For parents who remember school veggies as limp green or orange wads floating in watery brine and smelling of tin cans and steam trays, Durango's fancy local produce and grass-fed beef might seem nothing short of revolutionary. The day might be coming, though, when that menu is the norm.

The days of students fretting over being the last one picked during volleyball or the first one tagged in dodge ball are fading in many D.C. area schools as physical education classes… focus more on individual fitness, personal growth and development. "The trend is to move away from competitiveness," [teacher Donald] Hawkins says.

Unlimited Possibilities, Inc. launched a program to fight childhood obesity with a back-to-school celebration outside of their Palmetto Street headquarters Saturday. In the past, the non-profit learning center has focused on computer literacy and interpersonal skills, but after seeing South Carolina's recent obesity statistics, UPI director Margaret Smith added one more objective to the center's goal of enriching the community.

Milk choices in Mississippi schools this year will be fat-free or 1 percent low-fat. The State Board of Education adopted the new standards in March, Shane McNeill, director of the Office of Healthy Schools for the state Department of Education, said in a news release.

Jefferson County's efforts to reduce obesity and snuff out tobacco use will be the focus next week during the third annual "Health Action Summit" in Hoover.

On Thursdays, fresh fruit is now only steps away from the home of Dominique Wilder, 38, a mother of four in the Norris Square community of North Philadelphia. A tiny farmers market opened at Susquehanna Avenue and North Howard Street on Thursday, offering fresh produce - from apples to zucchini - to a community that does not have much access to healthy groceries.

Women who gain a lot of weight during pregnancy are more likely to have high-birth-weight babies, which may increase the children's risk of becoming obese later in life, a new study suggests.