With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by advertisements that make it seem imperative for us to express our love for friends and family with purchased goods. From staples like flowers and candy to bank-breaking jewelry and five-star restaurant reservations, decades of Valentine’s Day marketing have effectively equated love with flashy gifts and showy displays of affection.
Valentine’s Day as we know it in the United States primarily focuses on romantic love, often downplaying or outright excluding the relationships we have with family and friends. Alternatively, the Valentine’s Day equivalent celebrated in many Latin-American countries is “El Día de Amor y Amistad,” or “The Day of Love and Friendship.” In countries such as Colombia and Bolivia, the focus on both love and friendship encourages the celebration of our relationships with families and friends alongside relationships with significant others. Here are some ideas for how to celebrate this Valentine’s Day as your own personal day of love and friendship:
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It’s tough to overstate the benefits of being physically active. Regular exercise lowers the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and more. Research suggests that it also helps fight and prevent depression by releasing endorphins (our brains’ stress-fighters). However, working out often feels like a chore, and getting yours kids to participate can be an even bigger challenge. Inspire a positive attitude toward staying active in your family and show them exercise doesn’t have to be a drag!
We’ve talked about food systems on our blog before, and its likely you’ve seen many efforts to donate to and highlight one component of our local food system: emergency food programs.
You already know that the food system refers to the production of food, policies surrounding food in communities, and our consumption habits. But what happens when our food system is not sustainable or equitable and cannot provide enough food for everyone? Unfortunately, this is the reality across America and the world today. Last week, we talked about a central part of our work here at Pinnacle Prevention: food systems in Arizona. Our team has a vision for healthy communities across our state, and our primary way of achieving these food system goals is through systems change.
In general, systems change represents a shift in the way communities make decisions about services and programs, as well as the ways these services are delivered to citizens. This shift is made possible through partnerships and collaboration across communities, including direct community input, stakeholders and agencies. Systems change creates lasting impact on multiple levels of influence. Here at Pinnacle Prevention, much of our work revolves around local food systems in Arizona. We are all part of the food system, though most of us don’t realize it. The food system is comprised of nearly every aspect of food, including the environment in which it is grown, production, demand, processing, transport, and where it is consumed and disposed. Each and every component is complex in its own right. Our mission is to encourage and build healthy, sustainable food systems in our state and communities.
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