Rudd Sound Bites

Canada Leads by Example

by Rebecca Puhl

Over the past few years, there have been ongoing debates in the news and among various airlines in the United States about whether to charge obese passengers higher fees for seats in airplanes. I’ve argued in past blogs that this is a form of weight stigma and one of the many forms of discrimination that obese individuals face in public accommodations and modes of transportation.

“Fat Rant” Video

by Marlene Schwartz

I recently received a link to this YouTube video which features Joy Nash talking about being fat. I really like some of the points she raises. One of my favorite points is that people should not put off living their lives while they wait to lose weight.

Personal Investment in Schools

by Kathy Henderson

A story in the Sunday edition of The New York Times caught my eye. Apparently, the Washington elite are all agog at the prospect of the Obama girls attending one of their exclusive private schools, as Michelle Obama toured at least two schools last week. (The public school system is not being considered.) The article goes on to list a number of political players and the (private) schools to which they send their children and grandchildren. I began thinking about this in the context of motivation to improve the public school nutrition environment, among other aspects of the public school system. Education gets pretty short shrift in this country. I am left wondering if those with the power to do something about the school system had a personal connection to its impact, might the outcome be different?

Popcorn, Ice Cream Cake and Treats

by Beth Rocchio

The case has been made for the role of the addictive process in the obesity epidemic. Does it explain the entire epidemic? No. The problem is much too complicated for that. However, for tens, even hundreds of years, people have been describing an addiction to certain foods or overeating in general. See the poem by Rumi, The Worm’s Waking. 

Low Sugar Product Advice for the Beverage Industry

by Marlene Schwartz

I was interested to see an article in The New York Times on Pepsi's declining profits. It seems that messages to drink tap water instead of bottled water or soda are getting through to people. The reason this message may be so powerful is that it is based on both health (in terms of drinking fewer caloric beverages) and concern for the environment (and the impact of millions of plastic bottles). When you add hard economic times to the mix, the decision to drink tap water instead of buying Pepsi clearly makes a lot of sense to a lot of people.

Finding Answers in Surprising Places: What History Can Teach Us about Solving the Obesity Problem

by Beth Rocchio

As with alcoholism, to solve the obesity problem we must address genetics, biochemistry, physiology, sociology, culture, family systems, environment, economics, psychology, spirituality, nutrition, metabolism, physical activity, biology, epidemiology, poverty, public policy and regulations and...history. History?

A Healthy Recession?

by Jackie Thompson

Under the shock of this summer and fall’s increasingly jarring economic crises, the airwaves are rife with prognostications about the effects of ailing financial markets on our daily lives.  Everywhere we turn there are recommendations about how to stretch our family budgets and invest safely, but most of this attention has bypassed what is perhaps our most valuable asset: our health.  A recent New York Times article became one of the first to broach this topic, serving up a surprising conjecture: economic hardship may actually boost health in some ways.  The article describes how during boom times, people routinely neglect healthy practices such as cooking at home and exercising in favor of putting in long hours at work.  Additionally, lost jobs may lead more families to revert to having a single breadwinner, leaving a parent home to care for children.  The article’s tone, and even its accompanying photo, evokes images of a past when obesity was a medical anomaly, when home-cooked meals were the norm and labor-saving devices were too new-fangled or expensive to usurp day-to-day physical activity. 

Eat an Apple, Earn $1: Can We Buy Health?

by Gabrielle Grode

How can financial incentives change the food landscape? Can padding people’s pockets foster behavior changes at industry and individual levels?

In October, the Rudd Center hosted two seminar speakers who both spoke of how they have used monetary rewards to achieve desired outcomes. To be sure, using financial incentives to promote or discourage certain behaviors is nothing new – cities lure businesses by providing tax breaks, transportation officials increase tolls to reduce driving, public health officials raise taxes on cigarettes to decrease smoking. Increasing taxes on junk food has also been discussed. But what we heard from our speakers was slightly different: they both described initiatives that put dollars directly into individuals’ wallets to prompt change.