In 2007, a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine generated widespread media coverage for its claims that obesity can be transmitted via social networks, such as friendship, familial relationship or marriage. Details about the study appear in Issue 225 of this Update. The authors wrote additional papers on other personal characteristics, including smoking cessation, happiness and loneliness, concluding in each that a process of contagion or infection within the social network transmits the characteristics and that the transmission occurs up to three steps in the network, thus providing evidence of a “’three degrees of influence’ rule of social network contagion.” A new study published in a lesser-known journal, contends that the authors’ statistical analyses do not support their conclusions. Russell Lyons, “The Spread of Evidence-Poor Medicine via Flawed Social-Network Analysis,” Statistics, Politics, & Policy, Vol. 2, Issue 1 (2011). According to Russell Lyons, an Indiana University mathematician, the 2007…
Tag Archives obesity
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.
General practitioners (GPs) in the United Kingdom will reportedly receive payments each time they advise patients to lose weight and by maintaining lists of those who exceed weight guidelines. The GPs will apparently be able to offer free memberships in diet clubs, paid for by the National Health Service (NHS), as part of the new weight-control program. Critics are reportedly appalled that simply advising a patient to lose weight, without more, will increase GP incomes. They recommend that referrals to programs, such as Weight Watchers® and Slimming World®, would be more effective in addressing an obesity problem that is purportedly costing NHS more than £6 billion annually. See The Telegraph, May 22, 2011.
“Over the course of the past half century, during which PepsiCo’s revenues have increased more than a hundredfold, a public-health crisis has been steadily growing along with it. People are getting fatter,” opines The New Yorker’s John Seabrook in this article examining the tension between the ubiquitous snack food empire and its recent foray into “authentic, scientifically advantaged” functional foods designed “for different life stages—snacks for teens, snacks for pregnant women, snacks for seniors.” In particular, Seabrook focuses on PepsiCo’s recruitment of academics, scientists and former regulators to bolster its new global health agenda, which includes efforts to reduce sodium and sugar in its flagship products, as well as launch “better for you” foods that re-create both the physical and aspirational experience associated with high brand recognition. “No one I met at PepsiCo better represents the complicated relationship between private food companies and public health than Derek Yach, the company’s…
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has announced a May 19, 2011, public session of its Committee on Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention. Titled “Farm and Food Policy: The Relationship to Obesity Prevention,” the public session is a one-hour information-gathering forum where committee members will hear about “the determinants of food producer, manufacturer, and retailer decision making in the context of obesity prevention,” as well as “the current policy and political context in which farm and food policy decisions are made.” According to IOM, “the committee’s charge includes: considering relevant information about progress in the implementation of existing recommendations; developing guiding principles for choosing a set of recommendations; identifying a set of recommendations that is fundamental for substantial progress in obesity prevention in the next decade; and recommending potential indicators that can act as markers of progress.” IOM has solicited written comments on these topics and invited interested stakeholders to give…
According to an April 29, 2011, New York Times article, a plan to regulate purchases under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) continues to gain steam in New York City, where officials recently asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to approve a two-year pilot project prohibiting the use of food stamps to buy sugar-sweetened beverages with more than 10 calories per serving. Proponents of the measure have apparently estimated that city residents each year spend “$75 million to $135 million in food stamp benefits” on sugar-sweetened beverages, which advocates say are “the single largest contributor to the obesity epidemic.” But industry groups and other opponents have warned that the pilot project will serve only to stigmatize some consumers while giving government leave to police other purchasing decisions. “Once you start going into grocery carts, deciding what people can or cannot buy, where do you stop?,” asked one American…
The Alabama House of Representatives has passed a bill (HB193) that would prohibit people from filing lawsuits against establishments such as restaurants or grocery stores for selling them food that allegedly made them fat. The Commonsense Consumption Act, approved May 3, 2011, by a 75-20 vote, bars “civil actions against manufacturers, packers, distributors, carriers, holders, sellers, marketers, or advertisers of food products that comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements based on claims arising out of weight gain, obesity, a health condition associated with weight gain or obesity, or other generally known condition caused by or allegedly likely to result from long-term consumption of food.” Spearheaded by Representative Mike Jones (R-Andalusia), the bill is headed for debate in the Alabama Senate.
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.
Public interest lawyers and industry representatives debated the merits of using litigation to address obesity at a December 2010 symposium hosted by George Mason University, and edited transcripts have recently been made available in the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy. Among the speakers was John Banzhaf whose law students at George Washington University have long focused on “public interest litigation,” including lawsuits and regulatory initiatives against the interests of cigarette manufacturers. Banzhaf claims that a reporter’s question in 2002 about using litigation as a weapon in other arenas, such as concerns over obesity, led to the “modern fat litigation movement.” He contends that litigation and the courts are a legitimate tool to effect policy change, arguing that until corporations and their customers are forced to pay the full costs of their products, changes will not be made. Banzhaf also discussed the 10 lawsuits or threats of litigation that convinced…
