Tagged: health

It's mid-morning under a sunny and nearly cloudless sky at Paul Betancourt's farm, about 20 miles southwest of Kerman. Two workers are getting ready to disk the wheat field with the tractor and irrigate the cotton. Betancourt has been monitoring the temperature.

"It was 86 when you drove up and the forecast for Fresno is 99," he says. "It's usually a little cooler out here. We've kinda done the heavy lifting for the day already."

One of his employees, Ruben Elenes, has been a farmworker for 15 years. He knows how to protect himself from the sun.

We hear the term “obesity epidemic” often in the news these days.

Last month, the L.A. Unified School District voted to removed flavored milk from school lunch menus, a move proponents argue will help stem childhood obesity.

In April, the state assembly shelved a proposal to tax sugar-filled drinks. The money would have gone to obesity prevention programs.

Segment 1: California's long running budget battle entered a new chapter last week, when Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a budget sent to him by the Democratic controlled Legislature. On this edition of Quality of Life, we talk with Democrat Assembly member Henry T. Perea of Fresno, and Republican Assembly Leader Connie Conway of Tulare about what's next in the budget debate. We also get political analysis on the budget from Professor Jeff Cummins of Fresno State and Nathan W. Monroe of UC Merced.