Currently browsing posts about: Obesity-in-kids

Yesterday, I received a press announcement from the USDA with an invitation to join today’s press conference, “The Road to Healthville: Challenge to End Childhood Obesity.” The press release explains:

“This new approach represents a significant paradigm shift for USDA. For over 100 years USDA has been providing the public with nutritional guidance based on the latest science. However, as we know, waistlines have continued to expand over recent years…So what do we do in encourage healthy eating?

Dr. Brian Wansink, Executive Director of the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, has introduced a completely new approach — in a word “reminders.” If the public were to get a prompt or cue throughout the day (where we purchase food, prepare food, work and play), a subtle or gentle reminder, people will begin to respond with improved eating habits. Further, if corporations were enlisted in this effort with their extensive reach into the market-place to provide MyPyramid-based messaging and product development, there is reason to believe that healthier eating patterns and lifestyles will be adopted.”

Kellogg is among the charter members.  Today’s Kellogg press release lists what the company promises to do.  Uh oh. It’s developing a curriculum for K through 8 school kids.  Want to bet that Kellogg’s logo will be prominently displayed?

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is seeking proposals for faith-based advocacy efforts to prevent childhood obesity.  Have any good ideas?  Apply!

I’ve just gotten a press release from the USDA announcing its “road to healthville” challenge. On June 10, the USDA will hold a multi-media event featuring “dozens of some of the Nation’s leading corporations stepping forward to help stem the tide of overweight and obesity among America’s young people with specific new, out-of-the-box initiatives. The program will be hosted by CNPP Executive Director Dr. Brian Wansink.”  I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what food corporations will come up with.  Why am I thinking that out-of-the-box will not include stop marketing junk foods to kids, let alone making them.

In what the New York Times today calls a “hint of hope,” the CDC reports that rates of childhood obesity among American children haven’t budged since 1999 (well, maybe except for Hispanic boys and non-Hispanic black girls). As the accompanying JAMA editorial makes clear, the favorable trends still leave plenty of work to do; the rise in childhood obesity that started in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, has not declined and pediatricians are still seeing more young people with chronic disease risk factors than they used to. And then there are those troubling racial and ethnic disparities….

My mailbox is flooded this week with notices about the Washington Post’s front-page series on childhood obesity, in so many parts that it’s hard to keep up with. The series will run all week, apparently. Here’s are the starter links for the multiple stories on Sunday, May 18, for those on Monday, May 19, and for those on Tuesday, May 20. I’ll add the others later, but you have to scroll around to find all the parts. One, well hidden, was sent to me by Mike Pertschuk, who was the head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1978 when it tried to regulate food marketing to kids. One reason his efforts failed was opposition from the Washington Post. Here is its 1978 editorial ridiculing the FTC for even suggesting that food marketing might have something to do with childhood obesity. Times have changed and let’s hope the FTC has another chance to deal with this question.

Here’s the link to Wednesday, May 21.  And the one to Thursday, May 22.

Lots of states are passing laws to try to improve the food environment for kids–schools, marketing, vending, physical activity, farmers’ markets, and lots of other ideas. I can’t keep track of them. Fortunately, other people can and are writing about what they find.  Here’s one such paper, sent to me by Joel Moskowitz of UC Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health. It’s a good place to start if you are wondering whether the environment has anything to do with childhood obesity and, if so, what the legal system can do about it.

Thanks to Joel Moskowitz of the UC Berkeley Center for Family and Community Health for sending this link to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and its special research issue on the epidemic of childhood obesity. Lots of interesting stuff here. Enjoy!

According to Food Chemical News (this link may only be available to subscribers), the USDA is about to launch “Project M.O.M” (Mothers and Others and MyPyramid), a program that challenges food businesses to develop plans to counter childhood obesity through diet and activity. One problem: programs must be based on the Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. Stay tuned.