Rudd Sound Bites

It’s Just Another Meatless Monday

by Andrea Wilson

I didn’t know how to run 5 miles. I couldn’t fathom such a feat. But I could picture myself running one block. I had done that before. So that’s where I started. Although I kept my ultimate goal in the back of my mind, I focused on successes along the way, like making it through the second block, to the corner, down the road, and to the park. And eventually, I competed in and finished a 5-mile road race.

We all know how difficult behavior change can be. We are stuck in our ways, used to what we have always done, and have developed unhealthy habits. Sustainable behavior change comes from changing those habits, which takes a lot of effort, time, and self-reflection. A person with no history of exercise cannot become a marathon runner overnight. While it may be easier for someone to run marathons as an adult if she/he played sports in high school and college, it is not unrealistic to start the process as an adult. The process just looks different.

The Monday Campaign, in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, understands this. Their initiative, Meatless Mondays, challenges us to remove meat from our diet one day per week to improve the health of the planet and the people who inhabit it. Why Monday? As New Year’s Day is to a year, Monday is to a week. It’s the beginning of the work week, when structure returns and we set our goals.

CDC Weight of the Nation Update

by Marlene Schwartz

I am on the train right now coming back from the CDC's Weight of the Nation conference in Washington, D.C. It was a very interesting conference, as it brought together researchers and public health experts to discuss how to make policy changes to reduce childhood obesity. 

One of the most exciting plans is a new collaboration made up of the CDC, NIH, and the RWJF. The group is called the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) and its mission is to:

"[I]mprove the efficiency, effectiveness, and application of childhood obesity research and to halt-and reverse-the current childhood obesity trend through enhanced coordination and collaboration.

NCCOR accelerates progress to reduce childhood obesity in the United States by:
*    maximizing outcomes from research
*    building the capacity for research and surveillance
*    creating and supporting the mechanisms and infrastructure needed for research translation and dissemination
*    supporting evaluations."

Fragrance Infused Fibbing Foods

by Sarah Speers

The food industry is experimenting with a new “smell technology” that infuses odor molecules into food products, tricking your brain to think it tastes certain ingredients and flavors that are not actually in the product. According to an article in Fortune Magazine, one day baby food jars will be lined with aromas to make them smell “fresh” when opened, reduced sugar cereals will be infused with “sweet” odors so that they still taste sugary, and lids of children’s sippy cups will be lined with “chocolate” flavors so that plain milk magically tastes like chocolate milk.

Since the majority of what we taste occurs through our nose and sense of smell, this technology offers the food industry a way to reformulate their products to be healthier (i.e. eliminating sugar additives) without having to sacrifice the great taste consumers know and love. In lieu of purchasing expensive ingredients, companies will be able to use these flavored aromas. To some this may seem like a win-win situation, but I have reservations.

“Child Obesity Is Child Abuse”

by Meredith St John

It’s scary to think the state has the ability to remove a child from a home simply because he or she is obese. More frightening is that the state has actually exercised this power.

Jerri Gray is the mother of Alexander Draper, a 555-pound 14-year-old boy now in foster care. Gray was arrested in June and charged with criminal neglect. The arrest warrant alleges Gray put her son “at an unreasonable risk of harm” due to his weight, which was “serious and threatening to his health.”

This South Carolina case has garnered national media attention and public reaction has been wide-ranging. Some think this goes well beyond the state’s role in child protection, while others believe this is a step in the right direction. Ron Jones, a corporate wellness expert, likened obesity to providing children with illicit drugs and believes, “child obesity is child abuse.”

Beyond the totalitarian undertones, in a country where two-thirds of adults and almost one-third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese, placing obese children in foster care hardly seems like an appropriate solution. Yet, legal action against parents with severely obese children is a growing trend. In the last year obesity has played a role in 20 child protection cases in the U.K. Here in the U.S., several states now include morbid obesity in their definition of medical neglect, including Texas, New Mexico, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Why does Dr. Benjamin’s size matter?

by Rebecca Puhl

There has been a surge of discussion this week about Obama’s pick for Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin. The focus has not been on Dr. Benjamin’s many accomplishments or qualifications as a health care champion (e.g., working with the poor, providing health care in an underserved community, establishing a medical clinic for victims of Katrina), nor on her esteemed awards (e.g., she was named a MacArthur Fellow – awarded to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction”; recipients of this award must demonstrate “exceptional creativity and promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments”).

No, the focus has been on her body weight, and the criticism that somehow being overweight discounts and discredits all of her impressive qualities and accomplishments.

Check Out That Product

by Camille Lizarribar

I’ve often posted on product marketing, and as a follow-up wanted to highlight two websites that give consumers information about the products they buy.

The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit organization whose mission is to “use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment.” Founded in 1993, EWG does independent research on everything from natural resources to consumer products, and provides information on the health threats posed by environmental pollution and by exposure to chemicals in the products we use and consume. Their website contains a number of helpful tools such as the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, which provides an at-a-glance guide to the fruits and vegetables you should always buy organic, and those that are okay to buy conventionally-grown when organic is not available. They also provide a Tuna Calculator, which takes into account personal information to help you figure out exactly how much tuna you can safely consume given current issues with mercury contamination in fish. Their sunscreen guide and their cosmetic database are often cited in the media for product information. This website is a great resource for detailed information that is not readily available to consumers and that is essential to make healthy choices.

A Not So Fanta-stic Mobile Marketing Application

by Amy Ustjanauskas

In the past forty years, there has been a substantial increase in the consumption of soft drinks among 2 to 18 year olds. This means they are consuming a lot of extra calories. For every extra can of sugary beverages consumed by children each day, their odds of becoming obese increase 1.6 times.

The role soft drinks play in childhood obesity has been getting a lot of press lately, so I was surprised when I came upon Fanta’s new marketing agenda, which outwardly targets children through mobile advertising.

Fanta, the soft drink company, came out with a bunch of new applications, games, and interactive features for the cell phone, all targeting children. They have a new virtual reality tennis cell phone game and offer kid-friendly wall papers for phones. The feature that surprised me the most was the mobile application: Stealth Sound System, advertised as, “Get your volume levels right so only you can hear it and adults can't.”

Grilling Companies for Grilled Options

by Amy Ustjanauskas

The trend in fast food restaurants lately is to give off the appearance of health. Looking at fast food company websites for instance, you will see “nutrition calculators,” health and fitness tips, and the like. Television commercials for fast food these days, too, attempt to portray images of health and nutrition. Fast food restaurants are also creating new “healthier” options, such as McDonald’s grilled snack wrap and other grilled items.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is a great example of a fast food establishment with a recent campaign that makes their image appear healthier. Kentucky Fried Chicken launched Kentucky GRILLED Chicken, with product placements on television shows such as Gary Unmarried and with Oprah Winfrey promoting coupons that could be downloaded online and exchanged for two pieces of grilled chicken plus two sides and a biscuit. It is frightening how the grilled chicken promotion combined with Oprah’s endorsements affected people. The promotion was so popular that Kentucky Fried Chicken establishments actually had to turn customers away.

Kumbaya, Canoeing, and…Weight Loss?

by Meredith St John

Summer camp season is upon us. Canoeing, campfires, and singing are all part of traditional camp lore, where leaving mom and dad for a few weeks helps children gain independence, develop new skills, and forge new friendships.

There has been a growing movement towards more specialized summer camps. From languages and performance art, to computers and SAT prep, there seems to be a camp to suit everyone’s needs.

With increasing rates of childhood obesity, weight loss camps have become particularly popular. Such camps were immortalized in the 1995 film Heavyweights, and more recently in the MTV documentary Fat Camp.

While there are a variety of weight loss summer camps to choose from both in the U.S. and abroad, Wellspring Camps are an industry leader. Wellspring Camps have garnered national media attention for their scientific approach to weight management and dietary intake. “Amazingly fun and remarkably effective,” they advertise. Effective indeed. Most children and adolescents have achieved their weight loss goals at Wellspring, and 70 percent maintain or continue losing weight at home.   

A New Breed of Restaurant

by Gabrielle Grode

All the items on the menu are less than 475 calories. The restaurant boasts using seasonal foods and creating nutritionally balanced meals by grilling and using lean meats, olive oil, and other healthful ingredients. Seasons 52, a new breed in upscale dining, currently has eight locations: five in Florida and one more scheduled to open in 2010, two in Atlanta and one in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Its mission is to “serve highly flavored meals that are better for you and focus on the best of each season.”

Intrigued, I checked out the nutrition information, and sure enough, no item exceeds 475 calories. I created a sample menu for myself:
Spinach salad with pears – 334 calories
Cedar plank salmon – 447 calories
Tiramisu – 275 calories
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Total calories- 1,056