The New York City Council folks say scarce fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods is leading to high rates of obesity and other health problems. So they plan to issue 1,000 permits for mobile fruit and veggie stands in these areas. The produce carts -- there are already 4,000 stands in the wealthy Manhattan -- could be available as soon as this spring.

New York has been making many health strides, banning trans-fats from city restaurants and smoking from bars and restaurants and working to force fast-food chains to display calorie counts on their menu boards.

Currently, more than half of New York adults are overweight or obese. And it's estimated that 700,000 New Yorkers suffer from diabetes, While the rate of obesity is below 15 percent in much of Manhattan, rates in less affluent neighborhoods -- Harlem, South Bronx, and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn -- are over 27 percent.

See what you can do to improve your own health and wellness by visiting this AOL Body site.

Source

What you aren't aware of can't hurt you, right? We wish. Here is something that doesn't ring a bell every time we go to pick up our groceries: the handles of shopping carts are literally crawling with disgusting bacteria and germs. Okay, so the fear of using such a common item could border on obsessive compulsive, but that isn't stopping the state of Arkansas from passing legislation encouraging businesses to clean up those buggies.

How is this for following up with your constituency: legislator Fred Allen from Little Rock put the "Arkansas Health-Conscious Shopper Program" bill into action after hearing from many older women during his campaigning last fall. They voiced concerns over not wanting to go shopping due to the dirty nature of grocery carts. Mr. Allen thought they were on to something so he pitched the legislation and even cited a University of Arizona study which uncovered the truth about the matter.

It turns out that shopping cart handles are one of the dirtiest public surfaces you can touch, right next to public door handles and vending machines. Makes you think twice before putting your child in the front seat of one, doesn't it? Don't worry though, as germy as they might appear you would be hard-pressed to find medical cases where someone died from picking up their weekly shopping list.

Source