Big Food, Big Fat, Big Trouble

Alarm bells are finally ringing over the rising rates of childhood obesity in America. There has been a lot of buzz and a lot of ideas about promoting healthy eating and active lifestyles to combat this problem, not just for children but for all Americans. Someone in corporate America is saying: "Is this a marketing opportunity?" Big companies, especially ones that have products offering questionable social goods, have long looked for a “halo” effect that will counterbalance negative images that their customers might have of their products or business activities. Target gives out community grants for education and schools, as does General Mills through its cereal box-tops program. Big Food now wants to contribute to the fight against "Big Fat" in America.

This is a little more troubling scenario for PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, who have tasty "refreshing" drinks with no nutritional value. For years, their marketing campaigns have centered on being the drink of young, cool kids, and no one in the commercials looks overweight. It’s a hard sell to promote soda as “healthy.” Thus, many beverage companies have been expanding out into alternative beverages, like juice or sports/energy drinks, even flavored water, which has the same amount of sugar and empty calories, but can cop the appearance of being more healthful.

Nonetheless, the beverage companies must realize that they have to be in front of this issue, lest they are caught dealing with the consequences of looking like the bad guys. If "soda becomes the new tobacco," Coke and Pepsi will not be in a happy place. Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics, summed it up.

“While visionary CEOs and enlightened food company cultures may exist, society cannot depend on them to address obesity voluntarily, any more than it can base national strategies to reduce highway fatalities and global warming solely on the goodwill of the automobile industry.”

On the other hand, big corporate dollars and their skilled marketing experience could be used to great public benefit in the fight against obesity. Still, healthy skepticism is needed if public health advocates decide to dance with Big Food on this issue.

More reading:

Can Big Food Fight Fat? NYT, Bitman Blog, 4.23.10

Soda: A Sin We Sip Instead of Smoke? NYT, Bittman, 2.12.10

Can Pepsico help alleviate world hunger? Marion Nestle, foodpolitics.com, 4.16.10

The Bronx Paradox and other new food policy research

Many articles and issues about food security popping up lately: here's a quick look a few.

The Obesity-Hunger Paradox, NYT 3.12.10
A fascinating article in the Times about the co-mordibity of hunger and obesity, dubbed here "the Bronx Paradox." It's an issue I've long suspected but never saw the data put side-by-side. Some of the highest rates of food hardship are in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn; right where there are high percentages of food-related illness. This is another example about how socioeconomic problems are often a complex web with very few easy prescriptions. As quoted in the article,

“If you look at rates of obesity, diabetes, poor access to grocery stores, poverty rates, unemployment and hunger measures, the Bronx lights up on all of those,” said Triada Stampas of the Food Bank for New York City. “They’re all very much interconnected.”

Multi-pronged solutions of income support, nutritional support and education, improved access to better food choices in schools, in local stores and in neighborhood supermarkets, and improved spaces for recreation are all needed to combat the twin problems of hunger and obesity.

Rise in Soda Price Linked to Better Health, NYT 3.15.10

New research provides evidence that a proposed soda tax could reduce soda consumption and help young people make healthier choices. In nearly a one-to-one ratio, a 10% increase in price led to a 7% decrease in soda consumption, and less calories consumed overall. Full study is in the March 8 edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign wants ideas:
A new White House directive has created the interagency Childhood Obesity Task Force which is developing an action plan for how federal, state, and local governments, along with the private and nonprofit sectors, can come together to fight childhood obesity. In a call for ideas, you can submit suggestions here. The regulations.gov form is a little daunting, but you can use the comments button to write in your suggestions. They say whatever ideas you have are welcome, and they want ideas from parents and educators as well as from professionals. The deadline for submitting comments is March 26, 2010.

The Walmart effect

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Just a link to a very interesting article. There are so many issues to balance in nationwide food debates. There is a knee-jerk reaction against big corporate entities, especially ones with terrible workplace practices, like Walmart, but getting the huge food system to adapt and change is important too. Costco, the legend of huge sizes and relatively upscale bargains, is known for its produce and fresh food, some of it organic. The will of these giants, with their eye on the bottom line, may be what is needed to get organic or locally farmed food into the nationwide distribution system.

At the end of the day, access to fresh food at affordable prices is critically important. Strange, but true, that a mega-store may be the one that can make local, organic, fresh food the norm versus a luxury.

The Great Grocery Smackdown: Will Walmart, Not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy? Croby Kummer, The Atlantic, March 2010

The "One Cookie" Debate

The NYT Well blog this week features an interesting article debating whether cutting one cookie or a can of soda a day from your diet is enough to make any significant impact on weight loss. Or taken writ large that question could be posed: Can small changes in behavior be enough to make a dent in the obesity epidemic in America? The 385 + comments that trail from the blog post, while not in unison, pose an important challenge to the author: if we don't have the "small changes" to make, what do we have? Some people report how several small changes, taken together, start to amount to broad changes toward healthier lifestyles. Others seem to suggest that a commitment to a better diet or improved activity has to start somewhere. Only a few seemed willing to throw up their hands and give up.

Another issue is that we are actually not talking about ONE cookie; we are talking about many cookies and extra snacks a day. (See Parker-Pope's blog the every next day: Generation Snack.) And sometimes it's the GIANT cookies or muffins or bagels you find at the local bakery, which are many times the calories of a lowly normal cookie. The habits of having a cookie a day or a soda a day are not learned overnight, and may take some doing to unlearn. Again, acknowledging the problem and starting "somewhere," is an important step.

Sometimes dramatic change in lifestyle or diet is needed. Often a surprising lab result from a doctor's visit or a loved one's illness can prompt one to review diet and activity levels. But what's the best way to make life-long behavior changes? Single drastic changes, such as adopting "the all fruit diet," "the all carb diet," or whatever fad diet is in the spotlight, are doomed to be short-lived. On the other hand, focusing on the "small stuff" can actually mean making mindful changes in eating or exercising habits. This represents a constant, on-going process of decision-making that can result in more profound changes. It is not an overnight fix, mandated and scripted by someone else. It is taking responsibility for ones' self and making manageble changes that will improve your health, both now and long term.

In Obesity Epidemic, What's One Cookie? Tara Parker-Pope, Well Blog, NYT, 3.1.10
U.S. Children: Generation Snack, Tara Parker-Pope, Well Blog, NYT, 3.2.10

Food Stamps and Healthy Choices

A profile of the Food Stamp/EBT program in the New York Times last weekend had a number of surprising statistics, foremost that an astonishing 1.5 million New York City residents received benefits. Another surprise, to me, came in the breakdown of most popular items purchased. The "most popular" item: red meat. Nationwide, inexpensive red meats (7.8 percent of all transactions) and milk and yogurt (7.6 percent, combined). That's just as a percentage of actual transactions, not dollar value. Since meat tends to be more expensive that any other food purchase, the percentage of actual costs associated with meat purchases must be even higher. Also, high on the list were "more expensive" red meats at 6.7 percent and "bacon, sausage and luncheon meats" at 5.9 percent. Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? Red meat is not the best nutritional bang for your buck and is not the healthiest choice, especially for a demographic group that may be having health issues, in addition to tough economic straits.

While I don't support strict shopping restrictions for food stamp recipients, there's an argument that better education is needed to promote better shopping habits and menu planning. By inadvertently supporting a steady diet of red meat, the food stamp program might be contributing to larger problems of obesity and health concerns related to high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I'm certainly an occasional red meat eater, and I believe in moderation rather than strict dietary rules. But economical and healthy meals can be created without a over-dependence on red meat. Chicken (just 5.3 percent of EBT purchases), fish, beans, grains and vegetables can all be the center of healthy and satisfying meals.

I'm interested to learn what nutritional advice or other educational supports are provided to people who depend on the food assistance program. Can better information lead to better buying choices now, and improved health down the road?

Buying Milk and Meat, With Plastic Alan Feuer, NYT, 2.26.10
Once Stigmatized, Food Stamps Find Acceptance, Jason DeParle, NYT 2.10.10
A History of Food Stamps, Use and Policy, An interactive timeline. NYT, 2.11.10
Hungry in America, NYT 2.09.10

Michaell Obama takes on Childhood Obesity

Join the challenge! Click here. Image from www.letsmove.gov.

Michelle Obama, self-proclaimed Mom-in-Chief, is taking on one of the biggest challenges parents, educators, and health professionals face today: how to combat rising obesity in children. The numbers are striking: close to 1/3 of American children can be considered obese and obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years. Over $150 billion dollars are spent each year on obesity-related conditions overall. It is a huge and important endeavor to encourage parents and kids to choose healthier food and fitness options and to motivate health professionals, government agencies, and foundations to work together to meet this challenge.

Personal change is needed, but so are policy changes and structural supports that can help parents and kids make better choices. School lunch and school recess are perfect examples. Kids need healthy lunches both to learn better and to keep healthy. Active play at recess or gym is important as exercise and a way to release pent-up energy so that the kids can settle in and learn better in the classroom. Every parent and teacher knows this. But sadly, school lunch is too often high-fat fried foods and athletic time is too often cut for budgetary or scheduling concerns. No individual parent has control of a school's schedule or its lunch options, but together parents, educators, and local politicians can support common sense choices that can benefit all.

A call to action is needed to make sure these issues are on the table as viewed as critically important. Here, here to Michelle for leading the call. Her newest effort has two parts. The Let's Move campaign is aimed at parents, teachers, and kids providing both practical advice and information on policy advocacy for school lunch and affordable access to healthy food. The Partnership for a Healthier America is a collaboration of the biggest foundations in the health field (W.K.Kellogg, Robert Wood Johnson, etc), many of whom are already sponsoring evaluations on how to improve fitness and food choices among youth. It is so exciting that these ideas are getting a national spotlight with leadership from the First Lady.

Childhood Obesity Battle is Taken up by First Lady, NYT, 2.09.10
Let's Move campaign
Partnership for a Healthier America

Sports and family dinner

Now that my son is highly involved in track, I'm getting an insight into how playing sports can help keep kids off of drugs. Apart from the sports philosophy "train your body, keep it clean," my son's practice schedule (3-4 afternoon a week, 3-6pm) makes it difficult to do much hanging out. After he gets home and collapses on the couch for a while, there's homework, dinner, and that's it. He's pretty much given up TV, which is an added side benefit. My daughter is a dancer/acrobat, and, though the training is a little less intense (only 3 days a week for 1-2 hours), she's also younger and has less homework to deal with.

It's true that a sports schedule can hamper family togetherness at the dinner table, but that's where flexibility comes in. Change dinner times and allow snacks to give them fuel when they need it. Your hungry athlete will need more food, and thus will actually enjoy dinner. He or she will probably enjoy large helpings of whatever you dish up, a far cry from the picky days of toddlerhood. Some families take to eating dinner together in the car, which I can't advocate for, though I understand the occasional need. If you must do takeout, try to bring it home and eat around a table together. It's better, really!

NHSDA Report on Team Sports and Sunstance Abuse among Teens. SAMHSA.gov