PepsiCo. is pledging to eliminate all sales of “full sugar soft drinks” to primary and secondary schools worldwide by 2012.

PURCHASE, N.Y., March 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) announced today it is voluntarily adopting a new global policy to stop sales of full-sugar soft drinks to primary and secondary schools by 2012.  The industry-leading policy establishes for the first time a consistent global approach to the sale of beverages to schools by a major beverage company.    

The policy applies in all countries outside the United States, and is generally consistent with the company’s existing U.S. policy, which remains unchanged.    

PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi said:  ”We have long advocated for school settings to be made as conducive as possible to promoting the health of students, and we have programs under way with school authorities in several countries to do that.  This includes restoring or expanding physical education and promoting nutrition education.  This global policy will serve as an important part of that mission, by expanding our offerings of low-calorie and nutritious beverages.”

…The global school beverage policy continues to advance PepsiCo’s commitment to reducing calories in schools by offering students a wider range of low-calorie and nutritious beverages in appropriate portions.

PepsiCo worked with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation — a joint initiative of the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation and other beverage industry leaders — to change the mix of beverages in U.S. schools through voluntary guidelines.  The guidelines precluded the sale of full-sugar soft drinks to students in elementary and secondary schools, permitting only low-calorie drinks and portion-controlled juices, sports drinks and waters.  In early March, three years after guidelines were announced, it was reported that 98.8% of measured schools were in compliance.

While I can’t help but be a tad suspicious about PepsiCo.’s motives (i.e., this could be more of a PR move than anything else), overall, it still looks like a (small) step in the right direction.

This NYT summary of a recent study doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of kids’ snacking habits:

A sweeping study of 31,337 children and adolescents released on Tuesday tracked snacking and meal trends from 1977 through 2006 using data from four national surveys. On average, children reach for cookies, chips and other treats about three times a day, consuming nearly 600 daily calories from snacks. That’s an increase of 168 snack calories compared with what children ate in the late 1970s.

…Overall, snacking now accounts for about 27 percent of an average child’s total daily calories.

Desserts like cookies and cakes remain the main source of snacking. Salty snacks like chips and pretzels have posted the biggest gains and are the second largest snack category. Candy and fruit drinks are also popular. One notable trend is that in the past few decades, fruit drinks have replaced whole fruit as a snack.

The fact that kids are getting fatter isn’t news, of course.  Nonetheless, it’s interesting to see some numbers and comparisons over time. While the increase in daily calorie intake (+113) doesn’t seem all that large, it’s more serious when you combine it with less physical activity. More cals coming in + fewer being burned = fatter kids.

Study abstract here.

The New York City Dept. of Education apparently thinks so.  According to the NYT:

By the time the Panel for Educational Policy was ready to vote on bake sales during its monthly meeting on Wednesday night, it was after 11:30. By then, just one mother, Elizabeth Puccini, was waiting to speak out against the new policy, which bans most bake sales but allows students to sell premade items including Pop-Tarts and Doritos.

Apparently this was done to… combat childhood obesity.
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According to data recently published by the US Centers for Disease Control, slightly over 20% of youths aged 12 – 19 had at least one abnormal blood lipid value (i.e., high LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol and/or high serum triglycerides).  According to a Washington Post summary:

One out of every five U.S. teenagers has a cholesterol level that increases the risk of heart disease, federal health officials reported Thursday, providing striking new evidence that obesity is making more children prone to illnesses once primarily limited to adults.

A nationally representative survey of blood test results in American teenagers found that more than 20 percent of those ages 12 to 19 had at least one abnormal level of fat. The rate jumped to 43 percent among those adolescents who were obese.

Previous studies had indicated that unhealthy cholesterol levels, once a condition thought isolated to the middle-aged and elderly, were increasingly becoming a problem among the young, but the new data document the scope of the threat on a national level.

“This is the future of America,” said Linda Van Horn, a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University who heads the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee. “These data really confirm the seriousness of our obesity epidemic. This really is an urgent call for health-care providers and families to take this issue seriously.”

The CDC report is here.

Taylor LeBaron is one smart kid.

Taylor LeBaron is half the teen he used to be — and that’s a very good thing for both his health and self-esteem. An always-big boy who grew into a severely obese teen, the Georgia native dealt with schoolroom taunts and his own shrinking self-image even as he continued put on the pounds.

Finally, LeBaron took control of his life by turning to the thing that helped make him fat in the first place: video games. Based on the games he loved to play while he sat sedentary and stuffed himself, LeBaron created the “Ultimate Fitness Game” — not an actual video game but one that employs the same principles and strategy used to become a top gamesman.

…The fruits of LeBaron’s weight-loss labor are chronicled in his new book, “Cutting Myself in Half: 150 Pounds Lost One Byte at a Time,” in which he outlines the mechanics of his Ultimate Fitness Game while relating the story of how he went from a nearly 300-pound 14-year-old to the slim and trim 145-pounder he is today.

His is an awesome success story that hits all the right notes.  No fad diets, detox or starvation… just good nutrition, exercise and lots of patience.

As the LA Times puts it:

Americans may not be collectively doomed to die in their recliners after all, one hand in the chips bag, the other stretching for the remote. Obesity levels seem to be leveling off or slowing across most of the population, according to two new comprehensive studies of the nation’s heft.

The assessments, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are a welcome respite from the seemingly endless reports of Americans getting fatter and fatter. The latest of several to find an obesity plateau, they suggest that those earlier findings were not aberrations but that Americans may truly have turned a corner.

…Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of the children’s report, said the findings track with other reports, such as the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which saw a plateau among students in grades nine through 12 from 2005 to 2007.

“We’re continuing to see slowing,” Ogden said, “although the prevalence of obesity remains very high.”

It’s good news, although there’s still a long way to go.  Personally, I think this guy is spot on…

Dr. Howard Eisenson, program director of the Duke Diet & Fitness Center in Durham, N.C., sees glimmers of hope in the studies but says the real challenge is to get people to exercise. “The survey only looks at BMI; it doesn’t look at physical fitness, which doesn’t get enough attention,” he said. “Poor physical fitness is a matter of big concern.”

Bingo. Studies have already shown that physical fitness plays an important role in determining the health risks associated with being overweight. While exercise alone won’t win the battle of the bulge, it’s an important first step that could do a LOT to improve health and well-being.  There’s a lot more to the “obesity crisis” than BMI.

Thinking of General Mills always brings this bit of satire from the Onion to mind…

Surgeon General Mills Recommends Three To Five Servings Of Froot Per Day
December 4, 2002 | Issue 38•45

WASHINGTON, DC—In a report submitted Monday to the Department of Health and Human Services, Surgeon General James Mills recommended that Americans consume three to five servings of froot per day. “A crunchier, more berrilicious cousin of the fruit family, froot is vital to proper digestion and breakfast fun,” Surgeon General Mills said. “Whether you’re eating it straight off the vine or, ideally, in its processed ‘loop’ form, Americans should be sure to get plenty of froot.”

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This book review from NYT nutrition writer Jane Brody just caught my eye…

Recipes to Set Teenagers on a Healthy Path

…There is no better time than now to change this trajectory and get the nation’s youngsters on a more wholesome track. And there may be no better way to start than by consulting a new book, “Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs,” (Bloomsbury), by the award-winning chef Rozanne Gold in collaboration with a nutritionist, Helen Kimmel.

In creating the book with five budding teenage cooks, Ms. Gold, who lives in Brooklyn, took to heart the mantra of Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and public health at New York University, who has written many books on wholesome food choices: “I’ve long argued that the best way to get people to eat more healthfully is to teach kids to cook.”

…There is no better proof, perhaps, than the experience of another of Ms. Gold’s teenage cooks, Danielle Hartog, 15, of Westport, Conn., who is a vegetarian. Danielle, who lost 23 pounds in seven months using recipes in the book, said in an interview, “Once I started eating healthy and feeling healthy, I started exercising every day and experienced a huge boost in confidence.”

“It’s hard not to be motivated,” she added. “It’s easy cooking, fun, healthy, and any teen could do it by themselves.” Once a devotee of pesto pasta — “two portions after school” — she was surprised to find that her favorite recipe is the Very Fresh Vegetable Soup.

Looks like a very cool book – so I just ordered a copy from Amazon for my kids.  Both Ryan and Nick are reasonably capable cooks, but don’t always go out of their way to prep veggies… maybe this will inspire them.  It won’t be here in time for Xmas, but that’s ok.  It’ll make a great New Year’s gift.

As the title implies, I have some pretty mixed feelings about the Center for Science in the Public Interest. 

I love the organization for the way it exposes corporate bad behavior.  The CSPI’s recent press release about Nickelodeon is a case in point:

WASHINGTON—Despite its public statements and pledges to help combat childhood obesity, the overwhelming majority of foods marketed by the children’s media giant Nickelodeon are of poor nutritional quality, according to an analysis conducted by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest.

…CSPI reviewed 28 hours of children’s television programming on Nickelodeon, during which 819 commercials and public service announcements were shown. Of the 185 food ads, 177 had nutrition information available, and 138, or 78 percent, of those were for foods of poor nutritional quality, including Apple Jacks, Cookie Crisp cereal, Airhead candy, artificial fruit-flavored snacks, and Chuck E. Cheese’s, where 89 percent of its menu items are nutritionally poor. Some of the healthier foods advertised included yogurts and pasta.

Similarly, 77 percent, or 24 of 31 food ads published in Nickelodeon magazine were for junk foods like SweetTarts, Gummy Bugs, Laffy Taffy, Yogos Bits, or Burger King meals. During the study period, three fast-food restaurants were running tie-ins with Viacom, Nickelodeon’s corporate parent: McDonald’s with The Spiderwick Chronicles, Subway with The Naked Brothers Band, and Chuck E. Cheese’s with Bee Movie.

I have to hand it to the CSPI: nobody does it better. Just looking at that list makes me kinda queasy… so much of the stuff marketed to kids is uniformly awful.  Nickelodeon deserves to have its corporate toes held to the fire.

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The Nov. 2 issue of TIME magazine has a great article on the latest report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity: “Sweet Spot: How Sugary Cereal Makers Target Kids.”

Rudd researchers just finished crunching Nielsen and comScore data — which track television and Internet marketing — to figure out exactly how much cereal advertising kids see. The result: obesity researchers for the first time have hard data proving that the least healthy cereals are the ones marketed most aggressively to children.

…The Rudd findings, which will be detailed at CerealFacts.org in time for the Obesity Society’s annual meeting in Washington on Oct. 26, show that each year preschoolers (ages 2 to 5) see an average of 507 cereal ads that are designed to appeal to kids. The report also details how sugary-cereal makers are interacting with young consumers online through video games like Lucky Charms Charmed Life and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Swirl. 

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This LA Times article describes what happens when your kids are raised to prefer sweetened foods.

Reporting from Chicago – The dairy industry recently rolled out an expensive media campaign in praise of chocolate milk, a classic school lunch drink that’s under assault for its sugar content. As trade groups spend upward of $1 million to defend the drink, three fifth-graders have come to its rescue.

A year after the school district in Barrington, Ill., banned flavored milk from its elementary- and middle-school lunch menus, students persuaded administrators to give it another chance.

“Kids weren’t drinking the white milk,” said Haley Morris, 10. “It’s better to have the chocolate milk than nothing.”

…National health organizations agree that milk, whatever its flavor, has benefits for young bodies. Bone density peaks during adolescence, and calcium is vital to bone strength. Milk offers calcium, Vitamin D and a host of other nutrients. Children need about 32 ounces of milk daily just to get the recommended allotment of Vitamin D, Greer said.

Milk processors argue that children might not receive those benefits if chocolate milk is taken away. “There is a huge concern that if kids don’t care for [the taste of plain milk], they won’t actually drink it,” said Vivien Godfrey, the milk trade group’s chief executive.

If they won’t drink even a neutral-tasting beverage like milk without added sugar, there’s a problem.

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My girlfriend and I were both stricken by the darn flu virus this week. Not surprising then, that we spent a good chunk of time huddled feverishly in blankets, sipping NeoCitran and watching T.V.

At one point during a commercial break, I became alarmed and had to scrabbled feverishly for my thermometer. What I  had just witnessed convinced me that I had descended into a state of delirium brought on by an upward-surging of my temperature. Surely I was seeing things? Drifting in and out of consciousness? Perhaps hovering in an altered state of consciousness, trapped somewhere between fever-inspired dreams and reality?

Nope.

Apparently, Kellog’s Fruit Loops are now an even more healthful way to start the morning, thanks to added fiber. Yep, it’s true. Fruit Loops are nutritious. Don’t believe me? See for yourself…

And it’s not a pretty sight. I think his article in the LA Times, on the recent White House “Healthy Kids Fair,” was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but it failed… both as humor and reporting.  The problem?  Malcolm evidently couldn’t decide who he has more contempt for… Michelle Obama for using her position to promote healthy living, or overweight/obese Americans, whose “…flabby thighs are hidden by their drooping stomachs.”
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An Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel has proposed a new set of guidelines for the National School Lunch Program… and they’re long overdue.  According to the LA Times:

Children would get fewer French fries and more dark green vegetables in school cafeterias under recommendations being issued today by an Institute of Medicine panel.

In addition, for the first time in the National School Lunch Program, the committee called for calorie limits on meals in an effort to curb obesity. The lunch recommendations allot 650 calories for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, 700 calories in sixth to eighth grade, and 850 calories in high school. Breakfasts should not be above 500, 550 and 600, respectively, for the same grade levels, the committee said.

…Over the next decade, the sodium content of meals should gradually be reduced, the committee said. A typical high school lunch today contains about 1,600 milligrams of sodium; a maximum of 740 milligrams is recommended.

But the recommended upper limit of total fat would increase from 30% to 35% of calories, bringing it in line with the dietary guidelines. The goal is no trans fats and less than 10% of calories as saturated fats.

The committee recommended more legumes, vegetables and fruits — such as cups of fruit in breakfasts for all grades and in lunches for high school students. It also said no more than half of the fruit should be in the form of juice.

The committee recommended weekly amounts for vegetables, including dark green and orange vegetables, grains, and meats, cheese and yogurt for each age group. And it said fruits and vegetables were not interchangeable.

It also recommended that whole milk be replaced with low-fat or skim milk, and that refined grains be replaced with whole grain foods.

These changes are sorely needed.  Over the years, my kids resolutely refused to eat the food served in their school cafeterias, because it was always too fatty, salty and just plain unappetizing.  But a lot of kids have no choice.  Needless to state, school lunches ought to be better than fast food meals so many kids eat these days… not the equivalent (or worse).

About 400, apparently…

Low-income children in Philadelphia with about one dollar in pocket money managed to purchase almost 400 calories worth of snack food at convenience stores on the way to and from school, according to study published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

…“One of the most surprising findings was how many calories a dollar and seven cents can buy,” said Kelley E. Borradaile, the paper’s lead author and a professor at the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University. She worked on the study with The Food Trust, a community-based organization in Philadelphia that promotes healthy eating options.

The neighborhood stores offer a wide variety of cheap packaged snacks that contain little nutrition but are high in fat and sugar, the study found. For a total tab of $1.07, a child could purchase an 8-oz. sugary drink and a single serving bag of potato chips, plus a popsicle and several pieces of individually wrapped candy. The sum total of calories: 356 calories on average per day.

Estimated calorie needs for moderately active children 9 – 13 years of age are 1,600 – 2,000 for girls, and 1,800 – 2,200 for boys… so 356 calories is a pretty significant percentage of daily needs (16% – 22%).  That’s a lot of empty calories.  Convenience store snacks probably aren’t the only sources of empty cals in the kids’ daily menus, either.  As the full study makes clear, they’re at risk not only for obesity, but also other health/behavior issues associated with nutrient-poor diets.

I’m of two minds about this…

In an effort to limit how much sugar and fat students put in their bellies at school, the Education Department has effectively banned most bake sales, the lucrative if not quite healthy fund-raising tool for generations of teams and clubs.

The change is part of a new wellness policy that also limits what can be sold in vending machines and student-run stores, which use profits to help finance activities like pep rallies and proms.

As a health/fitness professional, obviously I don’t support having a lot of junk food in schools.  But as a former parent-teacher organization member/officer, I also have a lot of sympathy for student groups and clubs that are being deprived of a popular fund-raising tool.

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A two year study conducted by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine demonstrated that intensive nutrition/health education can improve body composition and lipid levels in overweight/obese children.

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‘Cause it could cost you your job.

PANAMA CITY — Bay County’s Health Department director, who courted controversy with a proposal to ban Gatorade from schools and equated Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts to obesity and death, resigned Friday.

…Bay County Commissioner Mike Thomas asked for Dr. Newsom’s resignation in a letter released Thursday saying the “vitriolic messages on the billboard outside the health department,” some of which have mentioned specific local businesses such as the soon-to-open Dunkin’ Donuts, could expose the county to a lawsuit.

It’s a sad story, since Dr. Newsom sounds like a dedicated public servant… he’s someone who clearly lives according to his values and sets a high bar for his own performance.  Unfortunately, it’s a case of childish behavior all around: from the thin-skinned local business owners who complained; to the panicky commissioners who demanded the resignation of a valuable asset… to Dr. Newsom himself, whose intemperate choice of words was a) virtually guaranteed to step on some toes; and b) unlikely to yield benefits commensurate with the hassle.

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Adult obesity rates are still rising…

Still, compared with 2008, obesity rates rose in almost half the states, and decreased in none. In four states — Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia — more than 30 percent of adults are obese. Eight of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates are in the South, and Colorado is the only state with a rate under 20 percent. Seven of the 10 states with the highest poverty levels are also among the 10 states with the highest obesity rates.

The trend is up sharply. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent, and in 1981 the national average was 15 percent.

The study, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health, found that in 30 states, 30 percent or more of children ages 10 to 17 were overweight or obese.

Full ”F As In Fat” report here.

It’s good news…sorta.

The epidemic of obesity among American children appears to be slowing, federal health officials are reporting today.

An analysis of data collected nationally about low-income preschool-aged children ages two to four years old found the prevalence of obesity increased from 12.4 percent in 1998 to 14.5 percent in 2003, but rose only to 14.6 percent in 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. That suggests the obesity epidemic may have hit a plateau, the CDC says.

It’s still too high, of course, but for now, at least it’s not getting worse.