The International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO) has released a July 2010 report on the PolMark Project, a survey commissioned by the European Union to examine how member states regulate food and beverage marketing to children. According to IASO, “The researchers found that two-thirds of the 53 countries in the region now have official policies on the need to restrict the promotion of unhealthy food to children, a dramatic increase since a similar survey five years earlier. However, most countries are depending on self-regulation by industry and only a few have brought in specific statutory measures.” The report apparently notes that 92 percent of key stakeholders interviewed in 11 countries “believed there was a link between advertising and child obesity.” In addition, (i) two-thirds “believed current controls on marketing to children were not strong enough”; (ii) more than 80 percent “thought that restrictions on advertising for certain types…
Tag Archives obesity
This article calls for government authorities to treat “junk food” and the obesity epidemic exactly as they addressed smoking. Noting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest dietary guidelines have recycled the same advice given 30 years ago, while the rate of obese Americans has roughly doubled in that time, columnist Davis Lazarus calls for “draconian” measures to reduce consumption of high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar products. Among other matters, he contends that such an aggressive campaign could mean anything from making certain foods less appealing by removing them from schools, government buildings and workplaces, to taxing sweetened beverages, stepping up wellness programs and subsidizing healthy foods instead of corn.
A new report has claimed that adult obesity in the United States has increased in 28 states in the past year and that 38 states have adult obesity rates above 25 percent. Titled “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010,” the report from Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “highlights troubling racial, ethnic, regional and income disparities in the nation’s obesity epidemic.” “This report shows that the country has taken bold steps to address the obesity crisis in recent years, but the nation’s response has yet to fully match the magnitude of the problem,” TFAH Executive Director Jeffrey Levi was quoted as saying. “Millions of Americans still face barrier like the high cost of healthy foods and lack of access to safe places to be physically active—that make healthy choices challenging.” The report’s key policy recommendations include (i) support for obesity- and…
Law Professor Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod discusses a number of ways that governments in the United States and around the world are attempting to address the growing incidence of obesity among their populations. This article provides information about municipal trans fat bans and menu-labeling ordinances, China’s restrictions on the morbidly obese adopting children, Spain’s voluntary food advertising regulations, and Japan’s workplace penalties for employers whose workers’ waist measurements do not shrink to accepted levels. The author distinguishes smoking cigarettes from overeating by referring to the former as an addiction and the latter as personal choice. She suggests that governments can and should regulate personal choice “to protect the health and welfare of its citizens.” While acknowledging that no “magic bullet” has yet been found to prevent overweight and obesity and that measures already in place are too new to assess their effectiveness, the author concludes, “whatever can fairly be done should be done…
Tufts University Professor Alice Lichtenstein and Harvard Medical School Professor David Ludwig team up in this commentary to advocate bringing back home economics to school classrooms as a way to combat the country’s childhood obesity epidemic. “Instruction in basic food preparation and meal planning skills needs to be part of any long-term solution,” they write. The authors welcome better food and beverage choices in schools and communities, but assert that those choices will have limited effect “if children do not have the ability to make better choices in the outside-school world,” which they will inhabit for the majority of their lives. “If children are raised to feel uncomfortable in the kitchen, they will be at a disadvantage for life.” They opine that unlike home economics classes of the 1960s, new food education classes should be open to both genders. “Girls and boys should be taught the basic principles they will need…
Authored by a Cornell Law School visiting scholar with a Ph.D. in economics, this legal commentary suggests that government critics err when they call efforts to address obesity an infringement on their freedom of choice. According to the article, this objection has “no meaning in the context of a modern economy” where “we are being manipulated into eating unhealthfully.” To illustrate, the author says that those opposing government regulation in this area are saying, in essence, “Don’t let Big Brother tell me what to eat. I do what the Pillsbury Dough Boy tells me.” The author argues that governmental initiatives aimed at altering our eating habits do not violate our freedom, but rather constitute “an important way to push back against all of the ways in which people are manipulated and harmed by industrial food production.” Because government is already “inextricably involved in deciding what is grown and sold, how…
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has returned to a federal district court litigation alleging that a karate instructor was fired because he was obese in violation of a New York City law that forbids disability-based workplace discrimination. Spiegel v. Schulmann, No. 06-5914 (2d Cir., decided May 6, 2010). According to the appeals court, no cases have yet addressed whether the city law applies to the obese, and the lower court was directed to consider whether the plaintiff had made a prima facie case of discrimination under that law. The plaintiff, who claimed his roommate was fired from a similar position after the plaintiff notified the defendant that he intended to file an employment discrimination charge, also alleged unlawful retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Affirming the lower court’s dismissal of this claim, the appeals court found that the ADA does not permit an individual to be held liable…
While the president’s Task Force on Childhood Obesity released its action plan with 70 specific recommendations to significant praise and fanfare this week, nutrition professor and author Marion Nestle questioned whether the ideas will actually work given their reliance on voluntary collaboration and participation. She said in her blog, “Voluntary, as evidence demonstrates, does not work for the food industry. Much leadership will be needed to make this plan work. But these recommendations should give advocates plenty of inspiration to continue working on these issues.” First lady Michelle Obama joined several task force members when the report was issued and said, “For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family, and one community at a time. We want to marshal every resource—public and private sector, mayors and governors, parents and educators, business owners…
Bipartisan House sponsors of a bill (H.R. 5209) that would establish a comprehensive national approach to addressing obesity in the United States held a press conference to unveil the measure on May 5, 2010. Appearing with Representatives Ron Kind (D-Wis.), Mary Bono Mack (R-Cal.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), and Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) to introduce the Healthy Communities through Helping to Offer Incentives and Choices to Everyone in Society Act of 2010 (Healthy CHOICES Act) were representatives from Del Monte Foods, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, American Heart Association, and the YMCA. Referred to several House committees, the bill would authorize an array of grants, take steps to improve child nutrition, improve access to physical activity for adults and children, improve access to nutritional information and healthy foods, change transportation policies to promote healthy lifestyles, and establish research and assessment tools. Meanwhile, Senators Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) have introduced a bill…
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has issued a report titled “Bridging the Evidence Gap in Obesity Prevention: A Framework to Inform Decision Making” to guide the use of relevant evidence about obesity prevention policies and programs. According to the report brief, IOM’s Food and Nutrition Board reviewed “what is considered to be the relevant information base for community, environmental, and policy-based obesity prevention initiatives” and found “a clear evidence gap.” In response, the board developed the L.E.A.D. framework process, short for “Locate evidence, Evaluate it, Assemble it, and Inform Decisions.” The framework involves “innovative approaches to generating, identifying, evaluating, and compiling evidence—taking a broad, transdisciplinary perspective.” These approaches include (i) incorporating systems thinking; (ii) building a resource base; (iii) establishing evidence for standards quality; (iv) supporting the generation of evidence; and (v) communicating, disseminating, evaluating, and refining the L.E.A.D. framework. See IOM Website, April 23, 2010.
