The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced an advisory committee meeting to “discuss whether available relevant data demonstrate a link between children’s consumption of synthetic color additives in food and adverse effects on behavior.” FDA plans to provide background material no later than two business days before the March 30-31, 2011, public meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland. Calling the news “welcome and overdue,” Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Executive Director Michael Jacobson said that the meeting was in response to CSPI’s 2008 petition calling for FDA to ban Yellow 5, Red 50 and six other food dyes. The dyes “have long been shown in numerous clinical studies to impair children’s behavior,” Jacobson said. “But for years—FDA— which actually commissioned one of the first controlled studies—dismissed the mounting evidence against the dyes.” See Federal Register and CSPI News Release, December 1, 2010.
Tag Archives children
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (S. 3307), which first lady Michelle Obama called “a groundbreaking piece of bipartisan legislation that will significantly improve the quality of meals that children receive at school and will play an integral role in our efforts to combat childhood obesity.” President Barack Obama (D) is expected to sign the $4.5 billion bill, approved in a 264-157 vote on December 2, 2010. The measure was approved by the U.S. Senate in August. The legislation allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to set new nutritional standards for all foods sold in schools, including lunch lines and vending machines, and will require schools to offer more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products. Its provisions also make it easier for qualified children to receive free school meals and provide funding for 21 million after-school meals annually in…
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) has reportedly vetoed an ordinance that would have prohibited restaurants from offering toy giveaways in children’s meals deemed too high in calories, salt or fat. Approved in an 8-to-3 vote on November 2, 2010, by the city’s Board of Supervisors, the ordinance has the minimum amount of support needed to override the veto, an action which apparently has not yet been scheduled. The ordinance was discussed in Issue 371 of this Update. Announcing the veto on November 12, Newsom called the legislation an “intrusive and ineffective approach” to combat childhood obesity. “Parents, not politicians, should decide what their children eat, especially when it comes to spending their own money,” he said in a statement. “Despite its good intentions, I cannot support this unwise and unprecedented government intrusion into parental responsibilities and private choices.” According to the California Restaurant Association, the legislation may face a…
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has issued a November 2010 report claiming that “children as young as age 2 are seeing more fast food ads than ever before.” Titled Fast Food F.A.C.T.S.: Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score, the report purportedly evaluated “the marketing efforts of 12 of the nation’s largest fast food chains, and examined the calories, fat, sugar and sodium in more than 3,000 kids’ meal combinations and 2,781 menu items.” According to a concurrent press release, researchers relied on syndicated data from The Nielsen Company, comScore, Inc., and Arbitron Inc. to determine “that the fast food industry spent more than $4.2 billion on marketing and advertising in 2009, focusing extensively on television, the Internet, social media sites and mobile applications.” Among its key findings, the study claims that (i) “Unhealthy foods and beverages still dominate restaurant menus”; (ii) “The restaurant environment does not…
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has given preliminary approval to an ordinance (No. 101096) that would prohibit restaurants from offering toy giveaways in children’s meals deemed too high in calories, salt or fat. Approved by an 8-to-3 vote on November 2, 2010, the legislation reportedly has enough votes to override Mayor Gavin Newsom’s expected veto when the bill comes before the board for a final vote. If approved, the law would take effect in December 2011. Under the ordinance, restaurants would be prohibited from offering “incentive items” such as toys, trading cards or admission tickets in meals containing more than 600 calories and 640 milligrams of sodium, and if fat makes up more than 35 percent of the calories, except for fats contained in nuts, seeds, eggs, or low-fat cheese. It would also require meals to include a certain amount of fruits and vegetables. District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty…
A recent study funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has reportedly linked workplace bisphenol A (BPA) exposure to “[1] decreased sperm concentration, [2] decreased total sperm count, [3] decreased sperm vitality, and [4] decreased sperm motility.” De-Kun Li, et al., “Urine bisphenol-A (BPA) level in relation to semen quality,” Fertility and Sterility, October 2010. Researchers apparently examined 218 Chinese factory workers—some with occupational exposure to BPA and some with only environmental exposure—concluding that, “those with detectable urine BPA had more than three times the risk of lowered sperm concentration and lower sperm vitality, more than four times the risk of lower sperm count, and more than twice the risk of lower sperm motility.” Among the 88 study participants who did not work directly with BPA, the study authors observed “similar dose-response associations . . . with environmental EPA exposures at levels comparable with those in the…
Corporate Accountability International Deputy Director Leslie Samuelrich contends in a recent AlterNet article that fast food companies “spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year marketing a dangerous product to America’s children.” She claims the companies deny putting children at risk and, instead, blame parents for their children’s obesity problems. According to Samuelrich, nonprofits and government agencies that promote healthy eating habits are not engaged in a “fair fight” with the industry, noting for example that the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation spends $100 million annually to address childhood obesity, while “major food and beverage corporations spend at least $1.6 billion in the United States every year—16 times more—to convince kids to eat unhealthy food.” Corporate Accountability International, describing itself as a corporate watchdog, says that it has been “waging winning campaigns to challenge corporate abuse for more than 30 years.” It has conducted campaigns against the tobacco industry, publishing materials…
A federal court in California has approved a motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement in litigation involving allegedly fraudulent claims that Kellogg Co.’s Frosted Mini-Wheats® cereal “was clinically shown to improve children’s attentiveness by nearly 20%.” Dennis v. Kellogg Co., No. 09-1786 (S.D. Cal., decided October 14, 2010). The settlement class consists of everyone in the United States who bought the product between January 2008 and October 2009. The company has agreed to create a $2.75 million fund “to provide cash payments to class members who submit valid Claim Forms. Class members may recover the full purchase price of the cereal they purchased ($5 per box), up to three boxes.” Any funds remaining will be “distributed to appropriate charities pursuant to the cy pres doctrine.” The company will also distribute specified food items valued at $5.5 million to charities feeding the indigent and will pay the costs of…
A recent study has suggested that mothers who consume diets high in trans fats could double the risk that their babies will have high levels of body fat. Alex Anderson, et al., “Dietary trans fatty acid intake and maternal and infant adiposity,” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 2010. University of Georgia (UGA) researchers studied 95 mothers in three groups—those who fed their babies only breast milk, those who used only formula and those who used a combination—to determine the effect of trans fat intake through breast milk. They concluded that the mothers who consumed more than 4.5 grams of trans fats daily while breastfeeding were more than twice as likely to have babies with high percentages of body fat, or adiposity, than those who consumed less than 4.5 grams per day. “Trans fats stuck out as a predictor to increased adiposity in both mothers and their babies,” study co-author Alex Anderson…
A recent study reportedly claims that prenatal exposure to the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its breakdown product dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) is associated with accelerated growth and elevated BMI in infants born to normal-weight mothers. Michelle Mendez, et al., “Prenatal Organochlorine Compound Exposure, Rapid Weight Gain and Overweight in Infancy,” Environmental Health Perspectives, October 2010. Researchers apparently used data from Spain’s ongoing INMA [Infancia y MedioAmbiente] study, which assayed blood from approximately 500 expectant mothers for persistent chlorinated pollutants such as DDT and DDE, hexachlorobenzene, beta-hexachlorohexane, and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls. The authors concluded that, when compared to infants born to women in the lowest quartile for DDE exposure, those born to normal-weight mothers in the first quartile were at “a two times increased risk of rapid growth.” In addition, “DDE was also associated with elevated BMI at 14 months.” The study suggested, however, that the association only appeared true for normal-weight, as…
