Even as school board officials in New York and Connecticut consider sending BMI “report cards” home to parents, following a dozen states which currently feature the practice, others are rethinking their policy. Arkansas, which under obesity-hawk Gov. (and now Republican presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee pioneered school BMI testing and report cards in 2004, may soon ban the practice altogether.
In the holiday spirit, a trio of positive reports from the obesity-policy front:
In New Zealand, soft-drink manufacturers are pulling sodas and other sugar-filled beverages from primary and secondary schools. In a more expansive move than the U.S. agreement brokered by ex-president Bill Clinton, New Zealand’s beverage companies signed a voluntary deal last week with the nation’s health minister to eliminate full-sugar drinks from all the nation’s public schools. Critics note: the phased-out policy won’t be complete until 2009, and diet sodas and some sports drinks will still be sold in schools.
Propelling the upward spiral in childhood obesity rates has been increased video-game consumption among American youth. Parents and public-health advocates are increasingly alarmed by the connection, documented by a host of medical studies over the past three years. Frequent gamers aged 8 and under are especially at risk of obesity, this research displays. Now national policymakers are investigating the intersection of electronic games and obesity.
The Democrats’ unexpected sweep of both Congressional houses last week has compelling ramifications for nutrition/obesity advocates, as Victoria Brescoll’s “Sound Bites” entry from last week testifies. Anyone despairing at the dearth of action in Washington, D.C., over the five years since the U.S. Surgeon General declared obesity an “epidemic” has reason to hope for real legislative attention on a number of policy fronts. Victoria mentions menu labelling; here’s two other important areas of legislative action to watch in weeks and months ahead. Future Rudd blog entries will continue to round out this long-awaited menu of policy change.
This week brought yet another announcement of a new set of “physical activity guidelines,” official Washington’s favorite response to ever-increasing obesity rates among Americans. Since these Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) guidelines won’t be announced until the end of 2008, this will likely be the last significant action on obesity/nutrition policy by the Bush Administration— rounding out a truly pitiful eight-year record of inaction. All the sorrier given that this presidency’s initial weeks marked the first-ever Surgeon General’s warning that obesity had reached epidemic proportions in the U.S., and a promise that government would act decisively in response.
A midterm Congressional election that looked troublesome for some Republican incumbents two weeks ago has turned potentially disastrous, in the wake of revelations about Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL)'s dalliance with at least one former House page, fallout from financial scandals besetting two longtime Republican House stalwarts, as well as continuing bad news from Iraq.
Imagine the tombstone:
Here lies Popeye the Sailor Man
Was strong to the finish
’Til he ate bagged spinach
A week or two ago, that dose of black humor wouldn’t have made any sense. And six or eight months from now, the Great Spinach Panic safely behind us, it won’t mean much either. Now, amidst spreading concern, watch the sequence of headlines carefully. Health alarms…bagged spinach to blame…$100 million estimated lost…and, in a few weeks, spinach safe to eat again.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported this week that the federal "Verb" program, designed to encourage physical activity among preteens, was quietly killed by the Bush Administration this year. The program, conceived in 2002 in response to spreading alarms about child obesity, produced fast-paced ads touting sports, games, and active lifestyles. Though initially criticized as vague and confusing--and too cozy with food-industry sponsors--Verb was eventually cited as increasing exercise among the preteens it reached by more than 30 percent. As the IOM concluded, Verb's disappearance "calls into question the commitment to obesity prevention within government."
For more details, you can find information about the IOM report at this website.
It took the federal government over 75 years and untold pressures from nutritional advocates to establish a responsible system of food labeling. Now, with concerns increasing about ever-spiraling obesity rates, several private companies—led by a handful of supermarkets—are taking further steps to help Americans make better food choices.
If the Bush Administration’s first Surgeon General is correct, obesity-related illnesses have now surpassed tobacco as the chief cause of preventable death in the United States. Obesity has been directly linked to heart disease, diabetes, stroke, infertility, and cancer. And as a spate of recent studies and news reports distressingly display, body weight is rising fastest among young Americans, including even infants. The most dramatic stories feature heart attacks among obese six year-olds.
Continue reading "Government regulation: meddling, or helping?" »
Worried about the nation’s spiraling obesity rate? Don’t look to the government for any help, caution an array of voices, from food-industry executives to Bush Administration officials. “Personal responsibility” is their mantra, a tagline that always plays well in individualist America. The solution to the obesity epidemic: show a little restraint, push back from the table, solve your problem yourself.
In a recent New York Post op-ed, the editors trot out a time-worn rant about "nanny state" efforts to help people control their nutrition/diet habits. The Post's tar-brush target this time? NYC Councilman Joel Rivera's musings about ways to discourage fast-food outlets from locating near schools and other "obesity hot spots."
The Post editors string together name-calling ("petty tyrants," "busy-bodying," ""salivating health commissars") and specious arguments ("Everybody dies eventually. Even skinny vegetarians") in the service of--what?
As U.S.health groups cautiously cite salt's contribution to nutritional problems including obesity, their counterparts in other countries have taken more aggressive action. The American Medical Association last week passed a resolution calling for a 50% reduction in sodium content of processed foods, restaurant meals, and fast foods. (Meanwhile, the U.S.government's primary food-regulation body, the FDA, still lists salt as "generally recognized as safe.)
As the AMA debated politely, British nutrition advocates were castigating salt over-consumption--and the restaurants/food processors who fuel it--in no uncertain terms. Excessive salt is "poisoning British children," the chairman of "Consensus Action of Salt and Health" declared. A government-affiliated group, the Trading Standards Institute, rather than decrying or ignoring the group's findings, actually publicized them--along with publishing them in the first place.
Britain's
health ministry is preparing an extensive system of food labelling in all public places, featuring red/yellow caution/green lights signalling potentially dangerous levels of salt in food.
