RWJF News Digest: Childhood Obesity

This frequently updated news digest on the subject of Childhood Obesity highlights key articles from major news publications. The digest is a free service of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Food, Fun — And Fat
Boston Globe, Stephen Smith, 07/19/2010
The battle to shrink the waistlines of America’s children focuses increasingly on how food is marketed, including the use of toys as lures.

Editor’s Note: This article mentions the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, which is an RWJF grantee. It also mentions a study by Lisa Powell of the University of Illinois at Chicago, which was funded by the Foundation through its program Bridging the Gap.

Extra Weight Adds to Economic Woes
“Well” (New York Times blog), Tara Parker-Pope, 07/22/2010
Years of being overweight not only contributes to health problems but also to a person’s economic woes, new research suggests. Adults who have been overweight since high school are more likely to be unemployed or on welfare than those who gained weight gradually during their 20s and 30s, according to a study published in The American Journal of Epidemiology. People who have been persistently overweight since high school are also more likely to be single at 40 and have no more than a high school education, compared with those who have gained weight slowly over time, the study showed.

Baseball Players Join First Lady’s Anti-Obesity Campaign
New York Times, Jane L. Levere, 07/20/2010
Michelle Obama has enlisted Major League Baseball and its players’ association for a new public service advertising campaign to promote her program to eliminate childhood obesity.

IOC, WHO Sign Pact to Promote Healthy Lifestyles
Associated Press, 07/21/2010
The International Olympic Committee and World Health Organization have agreed to work together to promote healthy lifestyles and tackle child obesity. IOC president Jacques Rogge and WHO director general Margaret Chan signed a five-year agreement Wednesday at Olympic headquarters.

Fast-Food-Free Zones Suggested to Combat Obesity
The Capital Times, Shawn Doherty, 07/22/2010
Should local governments in Wisconsin consider regulating the sale of French fries and cheeseburgers the way they control the sale of alcohol and cigarettes? State public health officials think so. Wisconsin's new 10-year public health plan, released Wednesday, suggests that municipalities use zoning regulations to limit the number and density of fast-food restaurants, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.

Legislature Passes Bill Targeting Childhood Obesity: Junk Food Sales Curbed in Schools
Boston Globe, 07/23/2010
A bill to restrict the sale of high-calorie, high-fat, and high-sodium snacks in schools has hit Governor Deval Patrick’s desk and could be law within 10 days. The legislation, meant to limit childhood obesity, cleared its final procedural votes yesterday. Under the bill, schools would be encouraged to sell nonfried fruit and vegetables, whole grain products, nonfat or low-fat dairy products, noncarbonated water, and juice with no additives.

Rand Corp. Researchers to Study Effects of Hill District Grocery Store
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Diana Nelson Jones, 07/20/2010
A thousand households in the Hill District will be the subject of a study that researchers say would be the first of its kind in the country to track a grocery store's impact on food-buying habits in a particular neighborhood over time. Researchers from the Rand Corp., with a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and help from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research, will begin tracking food-buying and eating histories this year in anticipation of the proposed 2011 opening of a Shop 'n Save on Centre Avenue near Dinwiddie Street.

City Builds Path to Healthier Life Through Web: New Page Offers Information on How Families Can Get Out, Get Active
Columbus Dispatch, Vince Bond Jr., 07/16/2010
Promoters of healthy lifestyles in Columbus hope to move kids and their parents from the Internet to the outdoors through a new portal. With nearly half of Franklin County's third-graders dealing with obesity, the city launched a healthful-living website yesterday that features tips on how to eat and ways to stay active around the community. Getactivecolumbus.com provides information on coming events and map links for bike paths, walking routes and parks.

Chef Tapped As City’s 1st Food Policy Director
Boston Globe, Andrew Ryan, 07/20/2010
Edith Murnane has always been defined by food, from the bucolic 700-acre apple orchard where she grew up to her Jamaica Plain restaurant, which served an extraordinary chili that tempered the bite of chipotle peppers with dark Belgian chocolate. Now Mayor Thomas M. Menino has pulled Murnane out of the kitchen to employ her gastronomic know-how in a new way. Murnane has been named Boston’s first food policy director to help increase access to fresh eats and expand opportunities for urban farming.

West Cook Y to Share in Grant to End Child Obesity
Pioneer Local, Bill Dwyer, 07/19/2010
The West Cook YMCA in Oak Park was selected on Monday to participate in a $6.8 million grant to tackle obesity in children. Sixteen Ys in the Midwest will take part in an expansion of the national organization's statewide Pioneering Healthier Communities, or PHC Initiative. The program, already in place in Connecticut, Kentucky and Tennessee, aims to reduce childhood obesity through “policy, systems and environmental changes that help transform communities, states and the nation,” according to the national YMCA.

Schools Plan to Serve Fresh Produce in Effort to Curb Childhood Obesity
Wasau Daily Herald, Keith Uhlig, 07/18/2010
Three local elementary schools will serve fresh vegetables and fruit snacks next school year as part of a federal program intended to curb childhood obesity. Kate Goodrich Elementary School in Merrill and Hawthorn Hills and Thomas Jefferson elementary schools in Wausau will receive about $54 per student to buy produce through the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. Goodrich will receive $20,555, Hawthorn Hills, $14,193, and Thomas Jefferson $16,042.

© 2010 All rights reserved.

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