In a Spring 2013 Breakthrough Institute paper, social policy research associate Helen Lee suggests that public health advocates have gone astray in modeling anti-obesity efforts on anti-tobacco efforts that have done little to address either overeating or smoking in any appreciable way. Titled “The Making of the Obesity Epidemic: How Food Activism Led Public Health Astray,” the paper argues that research does not support a link between obesity and increased mortality, unless the obese are also poor and lack access to adequate health care. In fact, Lee notes that mortality from diabetes and cardiovascular disease, often associated with excess weight, has decreased significantly because these diseases are treatable. Lee believes that “embracing obesity strategies that reinforce the notion that the poor are victims of an environment that is rigged against them” will not help them in the long run and that the better strategy would be to focus on “policy…
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Harvard School of Public Health Chair of Nutrition Walter Willett recently published an editorial in BMJ, urging policy makers to consider a range of strategies to curb obesity rates and thereby reduce the incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular mortality. The April 9, 2013, editorial responds to a study concluding that population-wide weight loss in Cuba between 1980 and 2010 “was accompanied by diabetes mortality falling by half and mortality from coronary heart disease falling by a third,” while a rebound in body weight “was associated with an increased diabetes incidence and mortality, and a deceleration of the decline in mortality from coronary heart disease.” Manuel Franco, et al., “Population-wide weight loss and regain in relation to diabetes burden and cardiovascular mortality in Cuba 1980-2010: repeated cross sectional surveys and ecological comparison of secular trends,” BMJ, April 2013. “The current findings add powerful evidence that a reduction in overweight and obesity…
According to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis, more than one-half of meat and poultry samples tested in 2011 contained antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Using findings from the federal government’s National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, the report asserts that “store-bought meat tested in 2011 contained antibiotic-resistant bacteria in 81 percent of raw ground turkey, 69 percent of raw pork chops, 55 percent of raw ground beef and 39 percent of raw chicken parts.” “Consumers should be very concerned that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are now common in the meat aisles of most American supermarkets,” said EWG nutritionist Dawn Undurraga. “These organisms can cause foodborne illnesses and other infections. Worse, they spread antibiotic-resistance, which threatens to bring on a post-antibiotic era where important medicines critical to treating people could become ineffective.” See EWG News Release, April 15, 2013.
Vermont Attorney General (AG) Bill Sorrell will reportedly join other state AGs for a conference on “the current state of food industry marketing to kids,” scheduled for May 2013 at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. After introducing a Dartmouth College pediatrics professor to the Vermont House Committee on Health Care to address youth marketing by the food industry, Sorrell noted that the state AGs will consider “labeling, advertisements and the like, and look at what, under existing authority, we might be able to do, and how we might be in a position to espouse change within our state legislatures.” Sorrell was able to insert a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages into legislation pending before the committee in March, fulfilling a recommendation in an obesity report issued by his office in 2010. According to Sorrell, “The food industry marketing to kids these nonnutritious, high-sugar and fat content fast-food…
Scientists presenting at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society have reportedly identified elevated levels of arsenic in some beers sold in Germany. According to Mehmet Coelhan, who conducted the study of 140 beers as part of a monitoring program, “the discovery could be of importance for breweries and other food processors elsewhere that use the same filtering technology implicated in the elevated arsenic levels in some German beers.” The team concluded that arsenic was released into the beer from a filtering material called “kieselguhr, or diatomaceous earth, that’s used to remove yeast, hops and other particles and give the beer a crystal clear appearance.” According to Coelhan, “The resulting arsenic levels were only slightly elevated, and it is not likely that people would get sick from drinking beers made with this filtration method because of the arsenic. The arsenic is still at low levels—the risk of…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), other advocacy groups and local public health officials have sent letters to the CEOs of supermarkets and pharmacies urging them to “encourage customers to purchase healthier, no- and low-calorie drinks in place of higher calorie sugar drinks to improve customers’ health, as well as boost [their] company’s reputation for social responsibility and caring for the health of its customers.” The letters cite scientific studies purportedly demonstrating that “sugar drinks (carbonated or not) are a major contributor to the obesity epidemic,” “the single largest source of calories in many Americans’ diets,” and “the only food or beverage that has been directly linked to obesity.” “With supermarkets [and pharmacies] selling the lion’s share of sugar drinks, your company and others clearly have an opportunity to promote your customers’ health by encouraging customers to switch from high-calorie to low-calorie drinks,” the letters assert. “Possibilities…
Fast Food Forward has apparently coordinated its second strike in six months as part of its long-term effort to unionize fast-food employees in New York City. According to media sources, hundreds of workers employed by approximately 65 fast-food restaurants throughout New York City walked off the job on April 4, 2013, to show support for Fast Food Forward’s latest campaign, which seeks to increase worker wages to $15 per hour. The effort has apparently drawn public support from UnitedNY.org, the Black Institute and the Service Employees International Union, among other organizations. “What happened in November was a very big thing in terms of seeing whether workers were ready and able to go out and strike and take risks in a way that has not happened in the fast-food industry before,” said New York Communities for Change Executive Director Jonathan Westin of Fast Food Forward’s previous strike. “A lot of people…
In a Nature Nanotechnology commentary titled “The insurability of nanomaterial product risk,” business and scientific researchers funded by the European Commission (EC) propose a framework for the insurance industry to assess risks for purposes of issuing policies that will ensure the “commercial viability and long-term sustainability” of the nanotechnology industry. Noting that Lloyd’s of London and large insurers are “paying close attention to developments in the area of nanomaterials,” the authors suggest that uncertainty about nanotech risks has led insurance companies to carry this risk on their books, because they have failed to explicitly cover nanotechnology risks in their policies. They recommend that control banding, which rates risks according to exposure and toxicity levels, could provide the means to harness the uncertainties and allow policies to explicitly include nanomaterials. The commentary concludes, “In the absence of effective regulatory controls and a lack of legal clarity, control banding will allow nanoparticle…
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has issued a March 2013 report highlighting “where children and adolescents viewed the food and beverage advertisements they saw on television in 2011.” Using Nielsen data, the Rudd Center apparently sought to quantify “the average number of food and beverage TV ads viewed by age group (ages 2-5, 6-11, 12-14, 15-17) in total and by product category, as well as the channels and programs where these ads appeared.” According to the report, four youth-oriented channels accounted for one-half of food advertising viewed by children, with Viacom’s Nickelodeon airing “over one-fourth of the food ads viewed by 2- to 11-year-olds.” Overall, 24 percent of these ads evidently featured fast food restaurants, 12 percent featured cereal, 11 percent featured other restaurants and 11 percent featured candy. In addition, the report noted that “[f]ive programs on the top-ten list of programs where children saw…
A coalition of more than 200 farm, consumer and environmental organizations has written a letter urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to support recently proposed changes to U.S. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) requirements for meat products. USDA proposed new labeling rules in March 2013 in response to a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that the old labels discriminated against imported livestock from other countries. The proposed rules would require that that all meat from animals born, raised and processed in the United States bear a “born, raised and slaughtered in the USA” label. “The only acceptable way to respond to the WTO challenge is to make labels more informative for consumers, not water them down,” states the letter. “U.S. farmers and ranchers are proud of what they produce and should be allowed to promote their products.” “Consumers want more information about the source of their food, not less,”…
