The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a public consultation on its draft guidance for sugar intake that aims to help countries limit sugar consumption and address public health issues such as obesity and tooth decay. The action follows increasing concern that consumption of free sugars, particularly in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages, “may result in both reduced intake of foods containing more nutritionally adequate calories and an increase in total caloric intake, leading to an unhealthy diet, weight gain and increased risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).” The organization also cites concern about the role free sugars play in the development of dental disease, noting that they are the most prevalent NCDs globally despite the treatment and prevention improvements of the last decade. WHO estimates that the cost to treat dental disease—5 to 10 percent of the health budgets in many industrialized countries—would exceed the financial resources available for all…
Tag Archives obesity
The World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe (WHO/EU) reportedly warned attendees of a February 25-26, 2014, health conference held by the European Commission and the Greek Presidency of the Council of the European Union that “being overweight is so common that it risks becoming a new norm.” According to a February 25, 2014, press release, WHO/ EU reported that 27 percent of 13-year-olds and 33 percent of 11-year-olds are now overweight, while 30 percent of boys and girls ages 15 and older “are not getting enough physical activity” in 23 of the 36 countries profiled by the organization. Although it noted the role of physical inactivity in rising obesity rates, WHO/ EU ultimately urged national governments to consider implementing stricter labeling and food product regulations that would require “the food industry to take responsibility.” “We must not let another generation grow up with obesity as the new norm,” said…
Associate Law Professor Diana Winters argues in “The Magical Thinking of Food Labeling: The NLEA as a Failed Statute” that those parts of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) regulating “health claims” and “nutrient content claims” have been ineffective at addressing obesity and should be repealed. While Winters acknowledges that leaving this aspect of food labeling to the states will result in an increase in litigation, because the current litigation environment is dominated by time-consuming, complex arguments over non-substantive issues, such as preemption and the primary jurisdiction doctrine, the best way to improve front-of-package labeling is to allow state courts to focus on the substance of deceptive claims. Among other matters, the author notes that attitudes about food consumption “vary wildly from state to state,” thus justifying differing state and local laws in the field of food labeling. She also observes, “By crafting laws tailored to targeted…
Contributors to a recent New York Times “Room for Debate” column have urged CVS Caremark Corp. to stop selling soda, energy drinks and high-calorie snacks in the wake of its decision to discontinue the sale of tobacco products. Noting in her debate response that “food is not tobacco,” New York University Nutrition Professor Marion Nestle nevertheless encourages the retailer to increase its sales of fruits, vegetables and healthy snacks while decreasing the availability of items like soda, ice cream and chips. “If CVS wants to counter obesity,” she opines, “dropping soft drinks is a good place to start. They have scads of sugars, and kids who drink them regularly take in more calories, are fatter and have worse diets than kids who do not.” In addition, a senior scientist at the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions calls on CVS pharmacies to prohibit the sale of caffeinated energy drinks…
According to Politico.com, an attorney who formerly represented cigarette manufacturers and served as in-house counsel for a major food company has written to the attorneys general (AGs) of 16 states seeking to interest them in bringing a lawsuit against “big food” to recover the financial Medicaid burdens associated with treating obesity-related diseases. Similar to AG efforts in the 1990s that culminated in a $246 billion tobacco industry settlement with 46 states, this initiative has its naysayers and supporters. A former AG, now directing Columbia Law School’s National State Attorneys General Program, claimed that the proposal will not gain traction because “[t]he food industry doesn’t deny that eating lots of food causes obesity.” On the other hand, Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy Dean Kelly Brownell said, “I don’t think it’s far-fetched at all. It’s probably not something that will happen immediately, but I don’t think it’s that far off.”…
The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) last week published its World Cancer Report 2014, a collaborative effort providing “a professional, multidisciplinary assessment of all aspects of the geographical distribution, biology, etiology, prevention, and control of cancer.” In addition to a chapter on cancer etiology as it relates to diet, obesity and physical activity, the report’s third edition includes a section focusing on regulatory and legislative initiatives—such as the taxation of sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs)—designed to minimize behavior-related carcinogenic risk. It also features a “Perspectives” article by Harvard School of Public Health Professor Epidemiology and Nutrition Walter Willett that reviews “our current state of knowledge on diet, nutrition, and cancer.” Co-authored by Willett, the chapter on diet, obesity and physical activity warns that excess body fat “increases risk of cancers of the oesophagus, colon, pancreas, endometrium, and kidney, as well as post-menopausal breast cancer.” Singling…
A study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization has reported “a strong and positive association between fast food consumption and age-standardized mean BMI [body mass index]” in high-income countries, citing market deregulation as a possible factor in increased fast food consumption. Roberto De Vogli, et al., “The influence of market deregulation on fast food consumption and body mass index: a cross-national time series analysis, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, February 2014. In addition to analyzing data on fast food consumption and age-standardized BMI from 25 high-income countries, researchers apparently used the index of economic freedom (IEF) created by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal to gauge the extent of market deregulation policies adopted by each country. According to the results, the average number of annual fast food transactions per capita increased from 26.61 to 32.76 between 1999 and 2008, while age-standardized mean BMI increased…
A recent report issued by the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum suggests that a 2007 prediction that 50 percent of the British population would be obese by 2050 significantly underestimated the scale of the country’s obesity crisis. Titled “State of the Nation’s Waistline,” the report notes that “it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the determinations of the 2007 [report], while shocking at the time, may now underestimate the scale of the problem.” Noting that health professionals could do more, such as intervening earlier, initiating discussion with patients on obesity and weight management issues, routinely measuring children’s height and weight and adults’ waist circumferences, and encouraging citizens to take a more proactive approach regarding their own health, Forum Chair David Haslam says that these actions go hand in hand with government leadership and ensuring responsible food and drink manufacturing and retailing. “We need more proactive engagement by healthcare professionals on weight…
A recent animal study has allegedly identified a new immunological connection between obesity and asthma involving “inflammasome activation and production of cytokine interleukin-17 by innate lymphoid cells in the lung,” according to a concurrent editorial published in Nature Medicine. Hye Young Kim, et al., “Interleukin-17-producing innate lymphoid cells and the NLRP3 inflammasome facilitate obesity-associated airway hyperreactivity,” Nature Medicine, January 2014. After studying mice that were raised on a high-fat diet until they became obese and developed asthma, researchers with Boston Children’s Hospital apparently reported that “obesity appeared to alter the innate immune system—the body’s first responder to infection—in several ways to cause lung inflammation.” In particular, they noted that, compared with non-obese mice, “the lungs of the obese, asthmatic mice had several differences”: (i) “High levels of the protein interleukin 17A (IL17A), a cytokine (signaling molecule) associated with several inflammatory conditions”; (ii) “Increased numbers of the immune cells that produce…
A recent systematic review of the current scientific literature “assigning obesity to the spectrum of neuropsychological diseases” has proposed “an integrative model” for understanding obesity not simply as a “deliberately flawed food intake behavior with the consequence of dysbalanced energetic uptake and expenditure,” but as a complex condition “linked to neurobio- logical and psychological aspects such as mood status, addictive behavior, motivation and reward processing as well as coping with psychosocial stress.” Kamila Jauch-Chara and Kerstin Oltmanns, “Obesity – A neuropsychological disease? Systematic review and neuropsychological model,” Progress in Neurobiology, January 2014. To this end, the reviewers highlight obesity research concluding, among other things, that (i) “chronic stress enhances food intake,” with both humans and animals choosing energy dense foods “to blunt their stress responses”; (ii) “food intake activates the reward circuitry” in the brain, increasing dopamine concentrations that correlate “positively with the rating of food pleasantness in humans”; and…
