Obesity
Campaigns do little to combat obesity
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When I was a teenager, I was walking down the street and a man hollered out of his car window, “When you wear red, people call you Kool-Aid!”
As amusing as it may be to compare a person to a man-sized pitcher of sugar water, at the time, I felt ugly.
I have always been “fat,” but I have never been unhealthy.
Clinical study supports benefit of breastfeeding support for obese women
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Breastfeeding is best, but what happens when something goes wrong? And why do so many women struggle with this “natural” process even after carefully following all the well-meaning advice they’ve gotten from their health care providers? Not surprisingly, some women have more difficulty than others and there are many factors associated with experiencing breastfeeding problems – especially in the first week after birth. For example, being African-American, having less than a high school education, and being poor are all associated with suboptimal breastfeeding outcomes. Recent studies also consistently show that being overweight or obese increases the chance that a woman will suffer breastfeeding problems. With burgeoning rates of obesity and a continued public health effort to promote breastfeeding, researchers are scrambling to figure out why overweight women have trouble breastfeeding and what can be done to circumvent this predicament.
On April 25, two talks concerning the potential benefits of intensive breastfeeding support for obese women will be presented at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting in Anaheim. These presentations are part of the scientific program of the American Society for Nutrition, the nation’s leading nutrition research society. Scientists from the University of Connecticut, Hartford’s Hispanic Health Council, the Hartford Hospital, and Yale University will speak. Their findings provide compelling evidence that peer counseling and support can substantially improve breastfeeding success among these at-risk ladies.
These studies, which were prompted by a sincere desire to “really understand whether obese women could be more successful at breastfeeding if they have help,” were spearheaded by Dr. Donna Chapman, Assistant Director of the Center for Eliminating Health Disparities among Latinos (CEHDL) in Hartford, CT and graduate student Katie Morel.
Childhood obesity: Healthy eating is key to combating weight
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When Danielle Puckett was 4, her mother tried to put a lock on the refrigerator door.
“She just started going in the refrigerator and getting anything and everything,” said Danielle’s mother, Dawn Keller. It was then that she began to notice her daughter was becoming overweight. “She was drinking a lot of whole milk. We started cutting back on what we gave her.”
That didn’t really help, though — Danielle would just sneak the food she craved, and she put on weight steadily. She weighed 105 pounds by age 5, 150 pounds by age 10, and 250 pounds by age 15, her mother said.
Obesity and weight gain near time of prostate cancer surgery doubles risk of recurrence
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Johns Hopkins epidemiologists say that prostate cancer patients who gain five or more pounds near the time of their prostate surgery are twice as likely to have a recurrence of their cancer compared with patients whose weight is stable.
“We surveyed men whose cancer was confined to the prostate, and surgery should have cured most of them, yet some cancers recurred. Obesity and weight gain may be factors that tip the scale to recurrence,” says Corinne Joshu, Ph.D., M.P.H., postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Joshu and her colleagues sent questionnaires to 1,337 men with prostate cancer who had undergone surgery to remove their prostate at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The researchers asked each participant to recall their dietary, lifestyle and medical factors from five years before their surgery through one year after.
Watching TV for Long Leads to Obesity in Children
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A recent study conducted by the Sydney South West Area Health Service has claimed that youngsters, who watch television for more than 2 hours in a day, are 3.5 times more vulnerable to obesity than those youngsters who watch it less.
The researchers also discovered a connection between the way these children commute to their schools and their obesity. Dr Li Ming Wen, Research and Evaluation Manager, Dr Li Ming and his team examined the weight, height, screen time and modes of commuting to school in 1300 children falling in the age group of 10-13 years.
“Almost 35 per cent of children surveyed watched more than 14 hours of television a week”, said Dr. Wen.
Obesity in Children: What Fast Food Corporations are Doing to Cause It
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Nobody can deny that fast food is unhealthy. Everyone knows that fast food is high in calories, fats, and sodium. But what causes obesity? When asked this, most people will say “fast food.” A diet high in calories and a lack of physical exercise are what cause a large percentage of the cases of obesity. Fast food explains the calories, but what about the sedentary lifestyle? Well, believe it or not, fast food can explain that as well. As it turns out, fast food corporations are a major cause of childhood obesity because they promote unhealthy foods and a sedentary lifestyle for children.
One striking factor of the fast food corporation’s link to child obesity is the abundance of fast food restaurants worldwide. “McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice retailer with more than 32,000 local restaurants serving more than 60 million people in 117 countries each day.” (“Our Company”) I even performed a search on the McDonald’s website to see how many McDonald’s restaurants there are in my area. According to the search there are at least 35 McDonald’s restaurants within a 13-mile radius of my house! This shows that there are a huge number of fast food restaurants in the world, especially since these numbers are for just one corporation. Adding on to the numerical evidence, fast food restaurants have increased 12.8% in the past 10 years (Entertaining Marketing Letter). This shows that fast food corporations are increasing the amount of restaurants they have in order to increase their profits. These numbers, although they may not look it, are in fact a big link to fast food corporations’ causing of obesity in children. The overwhelming presence of fast food restaurants means that children see the restaurants more often and that they are more likely to get their parents to stop there and eat. Also, when children are old enough, they can go to the restaurants with their friends. For example, my friends and I ride our bikes to a McDonald’s that is only about a two-minute ride from my house. If we don’t feel like having McDonald’s that day, there is a Burger King right next to it. All in all, the growing number of fast food restaurants does have an impact on childhood obesity.
Preventing childhood obesity from pregnancy on
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While applauding the First Lady’s efforts to combat childhood obesity through the Let’s Move initiative, researchers from the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco say that the campaign’s efforts focused primarily on behavioral and nutritional intervention—in school or at home—will yield “limited success.” In an editorial published online this week by the New England Journal of Medicine Drs. Janet M. Wojcicki and Melvin B. Heyman argue that any attempts to have a more substantive effect on childhood obesity must start well before children reach school age. “Indeed, prevention must start as early as possible, since school-aged children already have an unacceptably high prevalence of obesity and associated medical conditions,” they write. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one third of U.S. children are overweight.
Wojcicki and Heyman are among a growing number of obesity researchers and health professionals advocating for childhood obesity prevention beginning in infancy, pregnancy, and even earlier. In November of last year, the Institute of Medicine formed a new committee to specifically address obesity risk factors and intervention efforts for children under age 5.
Childhood obesity program should start early, say experts
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US First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign must include interventions that target pregnant women, infants, and pre-school-age children, and they should start as early as possible, say UCSF experts.
Janet Wojcicki, PhD, MPH, UCSF assistant professor of pediatrics, and Melvin Heyman, MD, MPH, professor of pediatrics and chief of pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at UCSF Children’s Hospital, discuss how “Let’s Move” might have the greatest impact on reversing the childhood obesity epidemic in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Their piece will appear in the April 21, 2010, issue of the journal.
New Nutrition Regulations for Tackling Obesity
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School leaders do not have the authority to control the food available to students during the school day, which meant that students are free to eat hamburgers and French fries in place of grilled chicken and green beans.
The U. S. Secretary of Agriculture will get the authority to establish national nutrition standards for all foods sold on school campuses during the school day with a proposed change to the federal law, which governs school lunches.
Julie Paradis, who is the administrator for the Food and Nutrition Service at the U. S. Department of Agriculture, is sure that the secretary will be given that authority.
New Mississippi law another step in obesity fight
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A bill recently signed into law by Gov. Haley Barbour is another small step in Mississippi’s quest to shed its image as the unhealthiest state in the nation.
The bill provides financial incentives to schools to promote healthy environments. The monetary awards range from $2,000 to $8,000, and are given to schools that participate in the federal HealthierUS School Challenge.
Currently, five Mississippi schools are in the program that recognizes the efforts of campuses that focus on nutrition and physical activity. Schools are rated as bronze, silver or the highest level of gold.
Greens press for anti-obesity industry regulation
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The Australian Greens are continuing to press for greater food industry regulation to combat obesity, following the publication of a study in the latest Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health revealed that obesity has overtaken smoking to become the leading independent risk factor impacting health in Western Australia.
Greens health spokesperson Senator Rachel Siewert called for “firm action” on preventative health and regulatory reform of the food industry.
“We need strong action on food standards, tighter regulation on food labelling to deliver more effective information to consumers, and a comprehensive ban on the marketing junk food to children,” said Senator Siewert.
Obesity may boost pneumonia risk in men
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Men who carry excess pounds may also carry an excess risk of pneumonia, a new study hints.
However, researchers note that the effect appears to be indirect. “This risk is driven by the development of chronic diseases related to obesity, rather than by obesity itself,” Dr. Jette Brommann Kornum of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, who led the study, told Reuters Health in an email.
Rates of hospital admission for pneumonia have been on the rise over the last decade—up 20 to 50 percent in Western countries. At the same time, more and more people worldwide are putting on unhealthy amounts of weight, which has fueled increased rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma.
Health Officials Desire to Battle over Obesity and Sodas
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The New York state’s health commissioner has been thinking about soft drinks and its effects on the general population. Dr. Richard F. Daines recently saw several billboards that spoke loud subliminal messages to anyone who glanced at those billboards. From the promotion of a large size of soda, a 44 oz., encouraging consumers to basically consume their soda in their vehicles, another billboard promoted any size soda for a dollar which encourages the average buyer to purchase the soda. A third billboard promoted that diabetes and obesity are one of the many reasons are getting C-sections instead of vaginal birth.
The last billboard was more direct that they suck fat and that is a smart liposuction. Dr. Richard F. Daines noted that the low prices bring on overconsumption and all in all we suffer the consequences from overconsumption and usage of bariatric surgeries and liposuction as a pill to get rid of obesity.
A soda tax has been looming within the state budget tax office however several groups are opposed to the imposition of such a tax. It is confusing the consumers overall that ending their love for soda and stop drinking it will end obesity when this is not true.
For kids, small soda taxes don’t make a big difference
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Small scale increases in the cost of soda likely have little impact on childhood obesity, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs. Soda taxes have been proposed as a means for fighting obesity by several prominent health researchers, and some public health officials have sparked controversy by advocating for steep taxes on soft drinks to deter consumption.
Yet, while previous research has shown that increased cost of soda leads to decreased consumption - a 10% price increase corresponds with an 8% reduction - there has been little analysis of how increased cost actually influences weight, and no analysis of this impact on children, they argue. To remedy that, the team of researchers from the RAND Corporation, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Institute for Health Research and Policy used current data on state soda taxes and children’s weight to assess the influence of soda tariffs both on consumption and childhood obesity.
Using data from a national study of elementary school-aged children collected in spring 2004, researchers analyzed body mass index (BMI), total weekly consumption of sugary drinks, and consumption during school hours for more than 7,000 children. They then analyzed state soda taxes (taxes specific to carbonated, sweetened beverages), from the same time period.
Ronald McDonald targeted for contributing to childhood obesity
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Just as lawmakers in Santa Clara County, Calif., are considering banning toys in kids’ quick-serve meals, a consumer watchdog organization is calling for McDonald’s to retire Ronald McDonald as its kids-marketing-oriented mascot. Corporate Accountability International has released a new report and national poll that finds that even though most Americans have a a positive impression of the iconic mascot, close to half think it’s time the company stop using him to target children.
The findings come amid growing concern over the QSR industry’s primary role in rise of childhood obesity and diet-related disease. The report, “Clowning With Kids’ Health,” analyzes how Ronald McDonald and other children’s marketing are at the heart of current trends.
The new poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners for Corporate Accountability International. Its findings include:
