“Because excess consumption of unhealthful foods underlies many leading causes of death, food taxes at the local, state and national levels are likely to remain part of political and public discourse,” claims this editorial co-authored by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity Director Kelly Brownell and New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Freiden, who write in favor of a penny-per-ounce excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Describing these products as “the single largest driver of the obesity epidemic,” the article compares a soft drink tax to similar taxes on tobacco “that have been highly effective in reducing consumption.” The authors specifically argue that an excise tax would help (i) reduce health care and other societal costs for obesity and diet-related diseases; (ii) correct an “informational asymmetry” between marketers and younger audiences, “who often cannot distinguish a television program from an advertisement”; and (iii) generate revenue, “which can further…
Tag Archives obesity
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is sponsoring a National Conference on Childhood Obesity on June 18-19, 2009, in Washington, D.C. The event will address (i) evidence-based links between diet, obesity and chronic disease, (ii) opportunities in clinical practice for preventing and treating obesity and related chronic diseases, (iii) the ways that school food programs and government policies affect children, and (iv) upcoming changes to nutrition guidelines and related government policies.
Recently published articles co-authored by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity Director Kelly Brownell explore various aspects of addressing obesity. They include: Kelly Brownell & Kenneth Warner, “The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar is Big Food?,” The Milbank Quarterly, 2009. This article discusses the “Frank Statement” that cigarette manufacturers published in the 1950s assuring smokers that the industry “always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public’s health.” The authors call this “a charade, the first step in a concerted, half-century-long campaign to mislead Americans about the catastrophic effects of smoking and to avoid public policy that might damage sales.” They examine the food industry to find purported parallels. They claim that food companies appear to have a similar strategy, focusing on “personal responsibility as the cause of the nation’s unhealthy diet”; raising “fears that…
A recent study has reportedly compared long-term teen obesity risks to those incurred by smokers. Martin Neovius, et al., “Combined effects of overweight and smoking in late adolescence on subsequent mortality: nationwide cohort study,” British Medical Journal, February 24, 2009. After examining the death rates of 45,920 Swedish servicemen over 38 years, researchers found that recruits who were obese in 1969 and 1970 were twice as likely to die by age 60 than those who had a normal body mass index between 25 and 29.9. Obese men thus experienced an increase in risk the same as that of normal-weight men who smoked half a pack of cigarettes or more per day. The study results also suggested that overweight recruits were approximately one-third more likely to die prematurely, a risk profile similar to that of normal-weight men who smoked 10 cigarettes per day. Although one expert from Emory University’s Rollins School of…
Since it was filed in 2002, the lawsuit filed by a putative class of teenagers alleging obesity-related injury purportedly caused by reliance on deceptive advertising for fast food has been appealed twice to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and is now before its third trial court judge. Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp., No. 02-7821 (S.D.N.Y., filed Sept. 30, 2002). The case was reassigned to Judge Kimba Wood on February 27, 2009. Judge Wood was one of former President Bill Clinton’s picks for attorney general, but withdrew from consideration after questions were raised about the immigrants she had hired as household help. Nominated to the federal court bench in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan, the Harvard-educated jurist has served as chief judge of her district since 2006.
The district court judge to whom this obesity-related litigation was reassigned in 2008 has dismissed motions to compel filed by plaintiffs and defendants, but has given the parties leave to renew after the court rules on motions for class certification. Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp., No. 02-7821 (S.D.N.Y., filed Sept. 30, 2002). Judge Robert Sweet recused himself from the proceedings following the pre-trial conference, held April 9, 2008, and the matter was reassigned to Judge Sidney Stein in May. The plaintiffs, a putative class of obese and overweight teens, alleged that the fast-food company misled them with deceptive ads. They are seeking damages for obesity-related health problems. Information about the lawsuit has periodically appeared in this Update since it was filed in 2002. It has been appealed twice to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, its issues have been narrowed, and it has been followed closely by consumer advocates and the food…
A recent meta-analysis and systematic review of medical literature has suggested that obese women are more likely to have children affected by structural abnormalities such as tube defects, spina bifida, cardiovascular anomalies, septal anomalies, cleft palate, cleft lip and palate, anorectal atresia, hydrocephaly, and limb reduction anomalies. Katherine J. Stothard, et al., “Maternal Overweight and Obesity and the Risk of Congenital Anomalies,” Journal of the American Medical Association, February 11, 2009. British researchers looked at 1,944 potential articles, ultimately including 39 articles in the systematic review and 18 in the meta-analysis. The results indicated that the children of obese women had double the risk of spina bifida and nearly twice the risk of other neural tube defects, as well as increased chances of heart defects, cleft palate, and problems with limb growth. “Maternal obesity is associated with an increased risk of a range of structural abnormalities, although the absolute increase is…
A new book published by the not-for-profit consumer organization American Council on Health and Science (ACHS) reportedly outlines the effects of obesity on “virtually every body system” with 17 chapters penned by medical experts in the field. Titled Obesity and its Health Effects, the report includes a preface by Daniel Stein, M.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who warns that “obesity is not just a ‘cosmetic’ problem; it negatively affects almost all aspects of human health.” For example, the book claims that obesity raises the risk for (i) arthritis and other problems of the skeletal system; (ii) gallstones and pancreatitis; (iii) psoriasis, as well as bacterial and fungal skin infections; (iv) sleep apnea and adult-onset asthma; and (v) decreased fertility in both men and women. “Our purpose in compiling this summary of obesity’s health effects in one consumer-friendly book was to educate people about how obesity poses a wide variety…
A recent study has apparently claimed that pediatric obesity may alter thyroid function and structure. Giorgio Radetti, et al, “Thyroid Function and Structure Are Affected in Childhood Obesity,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, December 2008. Italian researchers performed thyroid ultrasounds on 186 overweight and obese children over three years, as well as measuring their thyroid hormone and antibody levels. The ultrasounds of 73 children reportedly revealed symptoms of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease in which T-cells attack the thyroid, despite an absence of the antibodies usually indicative of this ailment. “The ultrasound findings are a bit mysterious,” the lead author was quoted as saying. “However, the findings do suggest the existence of a low-grade inflammation state, which has been known to characterize obesity.” Scientists have long suspected that thyroiditis can lead to obesity, but this recent study suggests that obesity plays a role in the development of thyroid disorders. In…
This article addresses one possible explanation for a phenomenon that New York Times journalist John Tierney refers to as “the American obesity paradox,” which he describes as the failure of America’s health food obsession to curb obesity rates. Tierney and Pierre Chandon, an assistant marketing professor with the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), asked separate groups of New York City residents and tourists to estimate the calories of two nearly identical meals from Applebee’s. The first meal contained a salad and a soft drink; the second meal was identical, but added a 100-calorie package of crackers labeled “Trans Fat Free.” The U.S. residents overestimated the calories in the first meal, but underestimated them in the second one. “Just as Dr. Chandon predicted, the trans-fat-free label on the crackers seemed to imbue them with a health halo that magically subtracted calories from the rest of the meal,” writes Tierney, who…
