March 11, 2010 — vol. 45, no 31
Michelle Obama taking on childhood obesity
As President Obama struggles to pass sweeping healthcare reform this month, first lady Michelle Obama is taking on her own battle for the nation’s health: childhood obesity.
Last month, the first lady launched “Let’s Move,” a campaign aimed at eliminating childhood obesity in just one generation.
Childhood obesity — and obesity in general — has increasingly become an important issue in the nation’s health debate. Today, a little more than one out of every three Americans is obese.
As in adults, obesity in children is determined by the body mass index, or BMI, a measure of weight in relation to height. Unlike the BMI for adults, the measurement for children is plotted on CDC growth charts and is age- and gender-specific, because the body’s composition changes with age and differs between boys and girls.
In the 2007 report on health and risk behaviors of Massachusetts youth, it was found that 11 percent of high school students were obese and another 15 percent were at risk.
The numbers were worse for middle school students — 18 percent were at risk of obesity.
On the national level, the prevalence of childhood obesity is so severe that the first lady called it a “crisis” at a recent conference of the School Nutrition Association.
While “Let’s Move” aims to benefit all children in America, it is especially important for communities of color.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, obesity does not affect all racial groups evenly —blacks and Hispanics have much higher incidents of obesity than whites. In Massachusetts, 30-34 percent of blacks are obese, and 25-29 percent of Hispanics, compared to 20-24 percent in whites.
This means communities of color are up to 15 percent more obese than the statewide average of 20.9 percent.
Obesity has major economic and health consequences as well. Each year the United States spends over $147 billion in healthcare-related costs on obesity-related diseases, like diabetes, high blood pressure and congestive heart failure. It is estimated that one-third of children born after the year 2000 will have diabetes at some point in their lives.
“The physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake,” Obama said.
In addition to these statistics, personal experience drives Obama. As a busy working mother in Chicago with little time to cook, she frequently relied on fast food to feed her family.
It didn’t take long before she saw the negative results in her two young daughters. The family’s pediatrician recommended changes in their diet — less junk food, more fresh fruits and vegetables —and soon after following the doctor’s advice, Mrs. Obama began to see marked improvement in her children’s health.
“I wanted to bring the lessons I learned to the White House,” she said.
“Let’s Move” addresses four areas: helping parents make healthy family choices; securing healthy food in schools; increasing children’s physical activity; and ensuring better access to healthy and affordable food — especially in low-income neighborhoods.
In addition, “Let’s Move” works with the Food and Drug Administration to make food labels easier to read, and with the American Academy of Pediatricians to encourage doctors to regularly measure BMI.
Schools are also a major target of the program. Collaborating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Let’s Move” encourages school food providers to reduce the amount of sodium, sugar and fat in their meals, and increase the amount of whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
The program will also work to push the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which aims to improve the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs.
In conjunction with “Let’s Move,” Pres. Obama launched the Taskforce on Childhood Obesity — the first of its kind — to review all policies and programs for children’s nutrition and physical activity and develop a national action plan.
“Let’s Move” is not without its critics. They contend the well-intentioned program fails to address what many researchers believe are two of the main contributors to childhood obesity: marketing and accessibility.
According to a 2005 Institute of Medicine research report, marketing has a strong influence on children’s diet. Each year, $10 billion is spent on food and beverage marketing to children — promoting foods high in sugar, salt and fat, and low in nutrients — which puts them at high risk for obesity.
Today, American children consume at least 30 percent of their daily calories from junk food, with soft drinks alone comprising 10 percent of their daily caloric intake.
Another factor in childhood obesity is proximity to fast food. Research conducted by professors at Harvard’s School of Public Health and doctors at Children’s Hospital in Boston found that “Fast-food restaurants are concentrated within a short walking distance from schools, exposing children to poor-quality food environments.”
Later research in California linked the proximity of fast food restaurants and schools with the obesity rates of students.
This is not Obama’s first public effort to encourage a healthy lifestyle. A year ago, with students from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, D.C., she created a 1,100 square-foot vegetable garden on the White House’s South Lawn.
It was the first of its kind since Eleanor Roosevelt’s “Victory Garden” in 1943. The garden is now home to 55 diferent kinds of vegetables.
“Our kids can’t afford for us to get this wrong,” Obama said about childhood obesity in a speech to the National Governors Association last month. “Let’s stop wringing our hands and citing statistics. Let’s move.”
| Mar 11 9:32am by Michelle [174.141.84.222] | |
I completely agree with this idea! Teaching our youth to eat small multiple meals throughout the day, chosen from the healthy food groups, along with adding more exercise will impact there health and weight loss. One program that is easy and fun for a kids diet http://thinadventure.com |
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| Mar 10 16:17pm by Steven Kopstein [69.86.167.136] | |
On shopping trips to local markets in my neighborhood, I would estimate that at least 50% or more of my neighbors are using Food Stamps (the actual paper stamps are no longer - people in need now get a card similar to an ATM card which can only be used to buy food). Always curious, I’ve been observing what people are buying - especially in these times when many are unemployed. For me, a trip to the supermarket is a cultural journey - we are what we eat, after all. So, what choices people make are an excellent indicator of the local culture. In my neighborhood, I notice that folks have a variety of products in their carts whether using Food Stamps or not. I’m still shocked at the variety of products available to American consumers in your average supermarket. It’s a true testament to the power of marketing, ingenuity, wealth and even creativity that the food industry has come up with ways to sell us a myriad of products unequaled anywhere in the world. As a cook, I know the cost of basic ingredients and have a general sense of what it takes to make even the most complicated processed foods. And as a 30 plus year mostly vegetarian, I am an avid label reader, which has helped me decipher the clues provided on an ingredients list. I’ve also watched in horror as our nation forgot how to cook and looked to the supermarket shelves for ever quicker satisfaction of a basic need. The cost to our country has been enormous. You’ve heard it all before. Staggering rates of obesity - especially among children, have changed the nations health, and not for the better. New diseases such as diabetes have placed enormous burdens on our already taxed public health systems and budgets. The social costs are less quantifiable, but common sense tells us that when we diminish contact with our source of life (food), the results are not going to be good. People who eat everything from a plastic container popped into a microwave lose a lot. They have no connection to what they are eating (which is usually too high in salt, sugar and or fat). The time it takes to prepare a meal from scratch is time well spent. You get to enjoy your kitchen, develop a relationship with the space. Invite friends and family over to your home to help or share a meal you’ve prepared is an immensely enriching experience, one that simply cannot be duplicated in a restaurant. Children learn from their parents. If we are teaching them that food comes from a box to be opened and nuked, they have no concept of what food really IS. They grow up without understanding the importance of farmers and farmland. Cooking strengthens bonds. So, what does all this have to do with Food Stamps? Well, the other day when I was waiting in line at the grocery store, I noticed what people were buying with their Food Stamps. Things like Pop Tarts, Coca Cola, canned soup and potato chips. Yes, I did see some people buying chicken and beef but every basket without exception contained more than a little processed food. It got me to thinking. What is the impact of these purchases? Where does the money go? How does it affect people’s health? How does it affect their social structures? How does it affect the land? The money goes to multi-national corporations making huge profits by forever manipulating the same basic ingredients and then convincing the public that they have something new and better to offer. I suppose some of this money winds it’s way into television and print and internet media as well. But most of the money goes into the coffers of huge conglomerates that effectively control what our food choices are. The Monsanto’s, ADMs and Cargills of the world who sue small farmers attempting to save seeds for re-planting and instead offer up their own genetically modified versions of what food is. It’s all about control of the food chain and they have achieved monumental control in a very short span of time (the last 20 years). They have the power and resources to shape national policy so it benefits their bottom line at the expense of small farmers and our health. Which brings me to our health. Despite what Republicans on ADM crack are trying to tell America, our health is in the doghouse. We spend more money than any other country on healthcare, yet we consistently don’t get the greatest results. Mostly this is because we eat too much processed food and don’t get enough exercise. This is not rocket science. Our sedentary lifestyles involve much car driving and TV watching - where we are exposed to more ads about how we can buy products that make us sicker (pop tarts and coke) and the “solutions” which mainly involve prescription drugs with weird side effects like anal leakage. This lifestyle affects social structures. How much interaction with other people do we get sitting in front of a screen - be it a computer, phone or television screen? What would be different if we spent an extra 30 minutes in the kitchen, preparing a meal with loved ones? What effect would this have? The truth that many people have forgotten is that it doesn’t take a lot of time to prepare a simple and healthy meal. Grains and legumes like rice, wheat and beans don’t actually take that long to cook. 30-45 minutes. Less if you pre-soak them. Steamed broccoli - about 5 minutes. Broiled or baked chicken, fish or beef - less than 15 minutes in most cases. How about a tossed salad with a simple oil, vinegar, salt and pepper dressing? Land matters - at the end of the day, it’s all we have. It feeds and sustains all life on the planet. Growing huge monocrops - massive acreage devoted to just one thing, like corn to make high fructose corn syrup, for example, destroys everything that was alive in the soil. So, we add chemicals to try to balance it our again. It’s a highly destructive process. Chemicals to make the land fertile wash into waterways and become pollutants. Chemicals to get rid of pests do the same. These chemicals must be produced and then shipped long distances - consuming huge quantities of natural resources and emitting tons of carbon (global warming gases). Right now, we are strapped in a budget and financial crunch which is by all accounts the worst since the great depression. What are we doing spending $36 billion on a program that harms our bodies, our land and our social structures so that a few large corporations can reap the benefits? My radical proposal is not to scrap the Food Stamp program. It puts food on the table for 28 million American families. My proposal is to modify the Food Stamp program so that Food Stamps - my tax dollars and yours - can be used only to buy fresh, natural and basic ingredients. Think about what an impact that would have on our country. I’m talking about no processed foods, no sugary drinks. If you have Food Stamps, you can buy as much rice, beans, flour, vegetables, meat, fruits even sugar as you need. You just have to prepare the food you buy. No Snackables, no Pringles. In most places around the world, people wouldn’t even consider these highly processed foods food. Instead of a sugary cereal in a box, how about some rolled oats with a banana? Michelle Obama claims to understand the value of local, organic and fresh foods and the Obama administration has made some moves towards improving the quality of food in schools. Bravo! But to be truly radical, how about taking on ADM, Cargill and Monsanto? The truth is, these basic foods cost far far less than anything processed. So, the Food Stamp benefit could probably be cut in half - and people’s health would actually improve. Something even a Republican could love. What do you think? Who runs this country? |
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