Calling for the food industry to put voluntary nutrition labeling initiatives on hold, Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Childhood Obesity, has co-authored an opinion piece about front-of-package nutrition labeling in The New England Journal of Medicine. Among other matters, the article recommends that industry leaders await an Institute of Medicine report with nutrition labeling recommendations due for release this fall. Brownell suggests that the nutrition keys system under development by the industry may confuse consumers by “including so many symbols” and allowing companies the discretion to change the nutrients listed. According to the article, “The most notable deficiency of the industry system is its lack of a science-based, easily understood way to show consumers whether foods have a high, medium, or low amount of a particular nutrient.” Brownell contends that the traffic-light system used in Great Britain is much clearer. See NEJM, June 23,…
Tag Archives children
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released a June 23, 2011, report titled Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Policies that recommends “evidence-based strategies… to promote healthy weights in children from birth to age 5.” According to IOM, “almost 10 percent of infants and toddlers carry excess weight for their length, and slightly more than 20 percent of children between the ages of two and five already are overweight or obese.” IOM urges health care professionals to measure weight and length or height at every routine pediatric visit “in a standardized way, using the most current growth charts from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” as well as determine which patients are at the highest risk of obesity based on their rate of weight gain, parents’ weight status and whether their “growth measurements [are] at or above the 85th percentile curves.” IOM also advises parents and caretakers…
The Los Angeles Unified School District has reportedly removed flavored milk from school menus in an effort to combat rising rates of childhood obesity. The school board approved a five-year, $100 million dairy contract excluding chocolate and strawberry milk in favor of low-fat and nonfat plain milk, and soy and Lactaid products. Beginning in the 2011-12 school year, the menu overhaul will also include more vegetarian and ethnic fare and eliminate corn dogs, chicken nuggets and other breaded items. See Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2011.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued a report warning that children and adolescents should not consume energy drinks because the beverages “pose potential health risks.” Titled “Sports Drinks and Energy Drinks for Children and Adolescents: Are They Appropriate?”, the report appears in the June 2011 issue of Pediatrics. Sports drinks and energy drinks are not the same, the report says, noting that sports drinks contain carbohydrates, minerals, electrolytes, and flavoring intended to replace water and electrolytes lost through sweating during exercise. “Sports drinks can be helpful for young athletes engages in prolonged, vigorous physical activities, but in most cases they are unnecessary on the sports field or the school lunchroom,” according to the report. Energy drinks, however, “are never appropriate for children or adolescents,” and should be avoided because they contain stimulants, such as caffeine, guarana and taurine, the report says. “Caffeine—by far the most popular stimulant—has been…
An Advertising Age article discusses recent litigation filed by parents against Facebook® alleging that the social network has used names and/or likenesses of their children in product endorsements without obtaining parental consent. While no child younger than age 13 is supposed to be able to set up a Facebook® account, Consumer Reports estimates that some 7.5 million of these children have such accounts, with an additional 14.4 million users between ages 13 and 17. When they click a “like” button for a product, such as a food or beverage, no mechanism is apparently available to limit how the children’s images and preferences are then used for advertising purposes on the Internet. According to the article, a large part of the social network’s advertising strategy is to turn users’ “likes” into advertisements showing the users’ names and images. Legal experts are reportedly unsure whether this strategy is legal, even when adults’…
McDonald’s Corp. investors have reportedly rejected a shareholder proposal that asked the company to prepare a report assessing the role of fast food in “childhood obesity, diet-related diseases and other impacts on children’s health.” Led by the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, which apparently owns $2,000 in company stock, the proposal coordinated with an open letter campaign launched by Corporate Accountability International (CAI) that asked McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner to retire “marketing promotions for food high in salt, fat, sugar, and calories to children, whatever form they take—from Ronald McDonald to toy giveaways.” The letter apparently ran in several media outlets, including the Chicago Sun-Times, New York Metro and San Francisco Examiner, and garnered signatures from more than 550 health professionals and organizations. At the May 19, 2011, shareholder meeting, however, the company recommended a “no” vote on the proposal, and Skinner evidently defended the iconic clown as an…
A group of physicians and scientists has written a letter to federal agencies calling for more pesticide testing on children’s favorite fruits and vegetables. Noting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) typically releases latest data on pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables each January but has yet to do so this year, the May 6, 2011, letter urges officials from the USDA, EPA and FDA to “speed the release” of such data. Signed by leaders of medical schools such as Columbia University, Harvard, Mount Sinai, and Stanford, the letter warns that growing evidence shows pesticide consumption can cause lasting harm to children’s brain development. “Children are uniquely sensitive to harmful effects from pesticides,” the letter states. “Yet they eat substantial quantities of certain fresh fruits and vegetables—apples, berries, peaches, for example—proven to contain multiple pesticide residues. We urge you to expand testing programs and share ample information with the…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has launched an Internet mapping tool that locates “food deserts” in the country. Designed to help policy makers, community planners and researchers bring nutritious food to low-income communities that lack accessibility to grocery stores, the Food Desert Locator is part of first lady Michele Obama’s initiative addressing the childhood obesity epidemic. “With this and other Web tools, USDA is continuing to support federal government efforts to present complex sets of data in creative, accessible online formats,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was quoted as saying. See USDA Press Release, May 2, 2011.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released its proposed voluntary principles for marketing food to children in an effort to encourage “stronger and more meaningful self-regulation by the food industry.” Designed by an FTC-led interagency working group with input from the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of Agriculture, the guidelines seek “to improve the nutritional profiles of foods marketed directly to children ages 2-17 and to tap into the power of advertising and marketing to support healthful choices.” To this end, the preliminary standards would require that, by 2016, all products marketed to this age group (i) “make a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet” and (ii) “contain limited amounts of nutrients that have a negative impact on health or weight (saturated fats, trans fat, added sugars, and sodium).” To meet the first principle, marketed foods must feature “at least one of…
“Forty years before it was removed from paint, pediatricians had enough evidence of lead’s ability to maim children’s brains—catastrophically and irreversibly—to warrant discussion in a medical textbook,” opines Sandra Steingraber in the March/April 2011 edition of Orion Magazine, where she posits that not only is the developing brain more vulnerable than the adult brain to social and nutritional environments, but “that neurotoxins can act in concert with each other” and “that the chemicals designed to act as neurobiological poisons—the organophosphate pesticides—truly do so.” In addition to summarizing studies on the effect of lead, arsenic, mercury, and other substances on developmental health, Steingraber highlights the latest research suggesting that organophosphate pesticides created to attack “the nervous systems of insect pests…have the same effect in humans,” interfering with “the recycling of the neurotransmitter acetycholine, one of the messaging signals that flow between neurons.” In particular, she cites studies purportedly showing that “organophosphate…
