New School Lunch Recommendations From the IOM
An Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel has proposed a new set of guidelines for the National School Lunch Program… and they’re long overdue. According to the LA Times: Children would get fewer French fries and more dark green vegetables in school cafeterias under recommendations being issued today by an Institute of Medicine panel. In addition, for the first time in the National School Lunch Program, the committee called...
NYC Bans School Bake Sales
I’m of two minds about this… In an effort to limit how much sugar and fat students put in their bellies at school, the Education Department has effectively banned most bake sales, the lucrative if not quite healthy fund-raising tool for generations of teams and clubs. The change is part of a new wellness policy that also limits what can be sold in vending machines and student-run stores, which use profits to help finance...
School-Based Program is Effective for Reducing Weight and Improving Health
A two year study conducted by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine demonstrated that intensive nutrition/health education can improve body composition and lipid levels in overweight/obese children. Researchers compared two groups of overweight and obese Mexican-American students between the ages of 10 and 14. Forty were in a treatment group and 20 did not receive treatment and were studied as a comparison or control group....
Don’t Diss Dunkin’ Donuts!
‘Cause it could cost you your job. PANAMA CITY — Bay County’s Health Department director, who courted controversy with a proposal to ban Gatorade from schools and equated Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts to obesity and death, resigned Friday. …Bay County Commissioner Mike Thomas asked for Dr. Newsom’s resignation in a letter released Thursday saying the “vitriolic messages on the billboard outside...
Depressing Statistics
Adult obesity rates are still rising… Still, compared with 2008, obesity rates rose in almost half the states, and decreased in none. In four states — Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia — more than 30 percent of adults are obese. Eight of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates are in the South, and Colorado is the only state with a rate under 20 percent. Seven of the 10 states with the highest poverty levels...
A Taxing Issue
An editorial published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine lays out the “Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages.” The piece, by Kelly Brownell, Ph.D. and Thomas Friedan, M.D., M.P.H. makes several salient points: Sugared beverages are marketed extensively to children and adolescents, and in the mid-1990s, children’s intake of sugared beverages surpassed that of milk. In the past decade, per...
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