Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
by Marion Nestle
Oct
31
2016
Happy Halloween (or, as should be renamed, Candy Day)
Aren’t you happy that it’s that sweet, gooey time of year again?
As Julia Belluz of Vox points out
Candy and Halloween didn’t always go hand in hand. It wasn’t until the 1950s that that candy industry started to push the stuff as a way to boost flagging fall sales.
The candy industry would love you to think:
- We eat so little candy that it makes no difference to our health.
- Kids who eat candy have healthier body weights than kids who don’t.
- Chocolate is a health food.
Kids do love candy, as this marketing report tells us. I’ll bet these favorites have everything to do with advertising budgets.
Does candy have a place in healthy diets? Sure, but in very small and occasional amounts.
Good luck getting through tonight’s trick-or-treat.
Happy Halloween, everyone.
