Rudd Sound Bites

Weighing in on WALL-E

by Carly Keidel

I recently saw the new Disney movie "WALL-E" after hearing very positive reviews from several friends and A.O. Scott, a film critic with whom I tend to agree. This case was no exception; I think "WALL-E" is a great, powerful piece of entertainment. But this blog post is not about my personal movie taste, but rather, the film's commentary on obesity and society.

Learning to Sell in the Lunch Room

by Michael Long

The Los Angeles Times ran an interesting article recently that highlights the challenges facing schools and parents as they work to improve the quality of food in schools.  Perhaps most importantly, the piece expresses a growing understanding that school lunch programs must improve the quality of their service if they want to keep their customers.

The Simple Math of Menu Labeling

by Roberta Friedman

A person walks into a McDonald’s.  She orders a Big Mac, fries, and a chocolate shake.  Here’s what’s going to go into her body:

100% Beef Patty:
100% pure USDA inspected beef; no additives, no fillers, no extenders. Prepared with grill seasoning (salt, black pepper).

Big Mac® Bun:
Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, soybean oil, canola oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of each of the following: sesame seed, salt, wheat gluten, calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, ammonium chloride, calcium carbonate, baking soda, soy flour, dough conditioners (may contain one or more of the following: distilled monoglycerides, DATEM, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, enzymes, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate, guar gum, mono-and diglycerides, calcium peroxide), calcium propionate & sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin. CONTAINS: WHEAT AND SOY

The Pros of Eating Locally

by Erica Kenney

The New York Times’ Well blog recently noted that the University of North Carolina is set to launch a study documenting the health benefits of locally grown food (you can read UNC’s press release about the study here). I expect this study will be fascinating, since a lot of the costs and benefits of locally grown agriculture have yet to be really fully documented by research; proponents say that the food is healthier, tastier, cheaper, and better for the environment because it decreases food miles, while critics say that the food is really no different in quality or taste, that farmer’s markets and encouraging people to grow their own vegetables is elitist and expensive, that locally grown food is not an option for many parts of the U.S. and the world, and that food miles are not really the biggest environmental problem caused by agriculture. I want to see where the facts actually come down in this argument.

Is it June Fools Day?

by Sarah Novak

Philadelphia Media Holdings said they wanted to “put a smile on people’s faces” (read: do some stealthy market research) with an ad spoof the company ran today in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.  If the ads didn’t perpetuate weight bias, perhaps I would be smiling instead of writing this blog.  The papers featured ads for Derrie-Air airline (get it?  like a rear end!  how irreverent!), where a commitment to the environment and decreased fuel consumption is achieved through a price per-pound fare structure.  The tag line on the site is “Pack Less. Weigh Less. Pay Less.”

An Unwelcome Weight Loss

by Becca Krukowski

An inmate in Bentonville, Arkansas has lost more than 100 pounds in eight months, while awaiting trial for murder. He reportedly weighed 413 pounds when he was arrested. That’s a dramatic weight loss and, I imagine, would be considered a welcome health improvement for many people; however, this individual is suing the county for insufficient quantity of food served in the jail. Apparently, the meals at the jail provide the inmates with about 3,000 calories per day, which is about 1,000 calories more than the USDA recommends for average daily intake. The plaintiff is also asking for hot meals, rather than the cold meals that the jail has served for years.

Indiana Jones and the Burger of Doom

by Michael Long

The Rudd Center has consistently opposed marketing junk food to children.  I’d like to call our readers’ attention to a recent open letter from a physician and movie fan to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg published by Salon.com. 

The letter’s author, Dr. Rahul K. Parikh, notes that he has long been a fan of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and as a child appreciated the marketing tie-ins to fast food and candy.  Today, as a pediatrician who frequently treats overweight children, Dr. Parikh calls on the film directors to cease promotion of junk food in their movies, citing Disney’s termination of their contract with McDonald’s as a model of good behavior.

USDA Launches New Website on Commodity Foods

by Rob Friedman

For those of you interested in learning more about the government's commodity foods program, the USDA Commodity Food Network has a new website. The network is part of the Food and Nutrition Service. Commodities are surplus foods purchased by the government which are then delivered to a variety of food distribution programs, including the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and the Child and Adult Care Food Programs.

Obesity and Climate Change: Framing is Everything

by Carly Keidel

In a letter that will be published in the next issue of the medical journal the Lancet, British researchers Dr. Phil Edwards and Dr. Ian Roberts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine suggest that obese people are significantly contributing to world oil demands and global food insecurity. Their letter states that obese persons use 18 percent more food energy than thinner persons, which in turn leads to a greater global demand for food.

“These data are interesting, but how they are framed will make a big difference,” states Dr. Kelly Brownell, Director of the Rudd Center. “Saying that obese people are contributing to climate change is highly stigmatizing and assigns blame to the individuals who are obese rather than the conditions driving the obesity in the first place.”

Portion Sizes: Maybe the Metric System Would Help?

by Becca Krukowski

A friend of mine returned from a business trip recently with a food-related nugget that he thought would horrify me. While out of town, he went with some of his colleagues to a local favorite restaurant known for their steak dinners. The menu states that the steaks are served “family-style” and depending on the cut, come in 2-6 pound servings. The steaks are all priced “per pound” and, according to my friend, the menu helpfully recommended one pound per person (see picture), and so all of these men complied and ordered a pound of steak. Nonetheless, my friend was surprised to see hunks of meat arrive at the table. He had not realized that a pound was equivalent to 13 ounces (in fact, I told him, a pound actually contains 16 ounces).