A boy in London, aged 12, was put into care with a BMI of 28. Dr Colin Waine calls for appropriate action to be taken so we eliminate the need for such drastic measures. Earlier this month a member of the National Obesity Forum’s board, argues that youngster over-fed by their parents should be treated as victims of abuse, as happens with malnourished children.
Misguided public policies that fail to protect the health of children undermine the fight against childhood obesity, according to a winning submission to the Canadian Obesity Network’s annual thesis competition. It’s not enough to say that we’re going to educate people about how to lead a healthy lifestyle – we’ve been doing that for a long time, and the problem isn’t going away, Purcell explains. Find her thesis here: http://www.obesitynetwork.ca/files/CON_2008_Winning_Thesis_PURCELL3340.pdf
On the basis of new consumer research, the Cancer Council NSW in Australia recommends front-of-pack Traffic Light labelling as it allows Australian consumers to quickly and easily make healthier food choices when grocery shopping. It is quite a good study.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council last week released their Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative. Each company will develop, and publish, an individual company action plan that outlines how they will meet this a set of core principles: 1) Advertising Messaging 2) Use of Popular Personalities and Licensed Characters 3) Product Placement 4) Use of Products in Interactive Games 5) Advertising in Schools and 6) Use of Premium Offers. This initiative will apply to all media.
Nutella in Australia
Oct 30
The Australian Parents Jury recently had a meeting with Ferrero Nutella to discuss their current marketing to children practices. Ferrero said they not longer: 1) Make nutrition claims eg: low GI 2) Make comparative claims against other products eg: Nutella has less fat/sugar than… 3) Use licensed characters on Nutella’s reusable glass tumblers and 4) Advertise Nutella during children’s TV shows. Ferrero aims to promote responsible consumption of Nutella with the concept of the Nutella breakfast. The breakfast includes a 20g serve of Nutella on two slices of high fibre toast, a piece of fruit and glass of milk, and has been designed to be a nutritionally balanced meal for children. The TV ads include the tagline It takes a lot of energy to be a kid. See what parents think.
Under the plan, hot chips, lamingtons, chocolate bars, ice creams and lollies would be banned and replaced with foods such as scones, dried fruit, frozen yoghurt and salads, while pies and sausage rolls may be allowed – occasionally. The plan, to be introduced on the first day of school in 2009, is expected to see the cost of lunches rise, but health experts say it is necessary.
Self-reporting sucks VI
Oct 29
Systematic biases may obscure or inflate associations with self-reported intakes. This cross-sectional survey aims to identify cognitive, behavioral, and social correlates of bias in children’s reporting of breakfast items on a self-completion questionnaire. 678 kids aged 9 to 11 years from 111 schools throughout Wales in 2005 participated. A larger percentage of less-healthful breakfast items (ie, sweet snacks and potato chips) were omitted from questionnaire self-reports. Children from lower socioeconomic status schools omitted more items than those from wealthier schools with omissions twice as high for less-healthful items than for more-healthful items within the lowest socioeconomic status schools.
The American Dietetic Association just published their updated position paper. Populations that consume more dietary fiber have less chronic disease. In addition, intake of dietary fiber has beneficial effects on risk factors for developing several chronic diseases. Dietary Reference Intakes recommend daily consumption of 25 g for adult women and 38 g for adult men. You can find a non printable pdf here: http://eatright.org/ada/files/Fibernp.pdf
Measures of residential density, street connectivity, land use mix, and sociodemographic characteristics of individuals were analyzed to predict walking, overweight and obesity status. Walking was consistently higher for all groups in the more walkable neighborhoods.
357 mothers from Melbourne provided information on their local physical and social neighbourhood environments, and reported weekly time spent walking for leisure and for transport. Public transport accessibility and trusting many people in the neighbourhood were predictive of increases in walking for leisure, while connectivity, pedestrian crossings, a local traffic speed were predictive of increases in transport-related walking. Satisfaction with local facilities was associated with increasing both types of walking, and the social environment was important for maintaining high levels of both leisure- and transport-related walking.