The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued an interim final rule amending the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program regulations “to establish nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools, other than food sold under the lunch and breakfast programs.” Acting under Section 208 of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the agency considered scientific recommendations and voluntary standards for beverages and snack foods, as well as more than 250,000 public comments, in developing the “Smart Snacks in School” standards, which must also adhere to the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Effective July 1, 2014, the final rule requires all competitive foods sold in schools to meet the following guidelines: (i) “be a grain product that contains 50 percent or more whole grains by weight or have as the first ingredient a whole grain”; or (ii) “have as the first ingredient one of the non-grain…
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The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report criticizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its “limited” response to school districts that had trouble implementing the new school lunch nutrition standards for the 2012-2013 school year. According to GAO, which gathered feedback from eight districts, schools reported that restrictions on the amount of meats and grains served each week during lunch required them to eliminate popular menu items and made it difficult “to meet minimum calorie requirements for lunches without adding items, such as gelatin, that generally do not improve the nutritional quality of lunches.” In addition, some school food authorities (SFAs) observed that calorie range requirements posed a particular challenge in schools with both middle and high school students “[b]ecause the required lunch calorie ranges for these two grade groups do not overlap.” To address these issues, GAO has recommended that USDA “remove the meat and…
A recent study has allegedly linked higher urinary bisphenol A (BPA) levels to a greater risk of obesity in adolescent girls, raising questions about whether BPA “could be a potential new environmental obesogen.” De-Kun Li, et al., “Urine Bisphenol-A Level in Relation to Obesity and Overweight in School-Age Children,” PLoS One, June 2012. Researchers with Kaiser Permanente apparently analyzed data from 1,325 students enrolled in grades four through 12 in Shanghai, China, to conclude that among girls ages 9-12, a urinary BPA level in excess of 2 µg/L “was associated with more than two-fold increased risk of having weight” greater than the 90th percentile of the underlying population. In addition, the study noted that the association “showed a dose-response relationship with increasing urine BPA level associated with further increased risk of overweight.” “This finding is consistent with findings in experimental animal studies where exposure to high BPA level led to…
Nickelodeon and its parent company Viacom have purportedly declined to change their advertising policies after four senators penned a June 10, 2013, letter asking the network to further limit the food and beverage commercials shown during children’s TV programming. “As an entertainment company, Nickelodeon’s primary mission is to make the highest quality entertainment content in the world for kids,” the company reportedly said in its response to recent criticism. “That is our expertise. We believe strongly that we must leave the science of nutrition to the experts.” According to a recent article in The New York Times, which reported that food advertising accounts for approximately 18 percent of Nickelodeon’s annual sales, the network has also highlighted its voluntary efforts to reduce advertisements for foods and beverages with high sugar or fat content, its promotion of health and wellness messaging, and its licensing restrictions designed to prevent the use of popular…
The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates has formally adopted three new resolutions at its 2013 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, that aim to define obesity as a disease, prohibit the marketing of energy drinks to adolescents younger than age 18, and end the eligibility of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). According to news sources, delegates reached the decision to recognize obesity “as a disease state with multiple aspects requiring a range of interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention” after hours of debate raised questions about how physicians and policymakers will use the declaration to counter rising obesity rates in the United States. “Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,” said AMA board member Patrice Harris in a statement announcing the resolution. “The AMA is committed…
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new report, “Marketing of foods high in fat, salt and sugar to children,” that calls the marketing of “unhealthy” foods to children “disastrously effective,” alleging the food industry is driving rising obesity rates in children by using “cheap new marketing channels, such as social media and smart phone apps” to promote fat-, salt- and sugar-laden foods. “Millions of children across the European Region are subjected to unacceptable marketing practices,” said Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe. “Policy simply must catch up and address the reality of an obese childhood in the 21st century. Children are surrounded by adverts urging them to consume foods high in fat, sugar and salt, even when they are in places where they should be protected, such as schools and sports facilities.” According to a WHO news release, although all 53 member states in the European Region…
A recent study has allegedly linked di-2-ethyhexylphthalate (DEHP) exposure to elevated blood pressure (BP) in children, raising concerns about the effect of phthalates and other plastic additives on long-term heart health. Leonardo Trasande, et al., “Urinary Phthalates Are Associated with Higher Blood Pressure in Childhood,” The Journal of Pediatrics, May 2013. Researchers with the New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center, University of Washington, University of Cincinnati, and Penn State University apparently used urinary metabolite data from 3,000 children enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2008 to quantify exposure to three phthalate families, including DEHP. Although the results evidently found no association between the phthalates used in cosmetics and personal care products and increased BP, dietary exposure to DEHP was reportedly associated “with higher systolic BP in children and adolescents.” “Phthalates can inhibit the function of cardiac cells and cause oxidative stress that compromises the health of…
The seventh biennial Childhood Obesity Conference is slated for June 18-20, 2013, in Long Beach, California. Described as “the nation’s largest, most influential collaboration of professionals dedicated to combating pediatric obesity,” the event expects to draw nearly 2,000 attendees from across the nation. Agenda highlights include presentations by New York Times investigative journalist Michael Moss, New York University Professor Marion Nestle, food activist and attorney Michele Simon, and Center for Science in the Public Interest Director of Nutrition Policy Margo Wootan.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reportedly sent letters to more than 90 businesses in an effort to educate them about updates to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) that take effect July 1, 2013. According to a May 15, 2013, FTC press release, the agency sent separate letters to both domestic and foreign companies “that may be collecting images or sounds of children” as well as those “that may be collecting persistent identifiers from children.” The letters explain to recipients that under the new rules, personal information now includes (i) “a photograph or video with a child’s image, or an audio file that has a child’s voice,” and (ii) “persistent identifiers, such as cookies, IP addresses and mobile device IDs, that can recognize users over time and across different websites or online services.” “Companies whose apps collect, store or transmit this information, as well as other personal information…
A recent study has reportedly concluded that while fewer food advertisements overall are shown during U.S. Spanish-language children’s TV programs than during similar English-language programs, “the nutritional quality of food products on Spanish-language channels was substantially poorer than on English channels.” Dale Kunkel, et al., “Food Marketing to Children on U.S. Spanish-Language Television,” Journal of Health Communications, May 2013. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the study analyzed 158 Spanish language children’s programs “for [their] advertising content and compared them with an equivalent sample of English-language advertising.” Researchers also evaluated the nutritional quality of the advertised products using a rating system developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that divides foods into three categories: Go (foods that are “rich in nutrients and relatively low in calories”), Slow (foods that are “higher in fat, added sugar and calories than Go foods”) and Whoa (foods that are…
