Associate professor Clare Collins from University of Newcastle did a two-year health survey of 165 obese children aged five to nine. Her research has shown an easy way to protect children from obesity. She said that the most important thing parents can do for kids is to sit down at the table as a family. Traditional family dinner is more than enough to fight obesity in case of kids since parents are still the biggest influence on child nutritional health.
EU agriculture ministers, including Ireland’s Brendan Smith, have given broad support to the scheme, which aims to start next year to promote healthy eating and to tackle child obesity. An estimated 22 million children in the EU are overweight. More than five million of those are obese, and that figure is expected to rise by 400,000 every year. The scheme, proposed by EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, would see €90 million a year earmarked from EU funds, with each country matching the amount of cash that it receives from Brussels.
A ban on pupils having sugar in their cups of tea in a school canteen has been lifted, and replaced with a two spoonfuls-only rule. Watch this wonderful video with students protesting.
In adolescents, physical inactivity is associated with emotional and behavioral problems, suggests a Finnish study of more than 7,000 teenagers who took part in a survey that assessed their levels of physical activity and mental and emotional health.
Fruits, vegetables and cereals sold throughout the European Union contain record levels of pesticides – according to an official report to be published later this month. Almost half of fruits, vegetables and cereals are now contaminated with pesticides – a substantial increase on the level seen just 5 years ago.
EU-Kommissionen har idømt to af verdens store bananselskaber, Dole og Weichert, bøder på sammenlagt 450 millioner kroner. Den tredje bananskurk, frugtfabrikanten Chiquita, slap for en straf på 620 millioner kroner ved at samarbejde med kommissionen om efterforskningen. Det ulovlige kartel fungerede fra 2000 til og med 2002 i otte nordeuropæiske lande, heriblandt Danmark.
A study of 6300 patients who were given primary care prescriptions designed to improve their levels of activity shows that the proportion of inactive patients dropped from 33% to 17% after three months. The study was carried out by researchers in Sweden.
Britain’s leading oral health charity (The British Dental Health Foundation) has called for a UK-wide ban on sales of fizzy drinks and sugary snacks on healthcare and education premises.
Though the health benefits of whole grains are well known, plenty of people still can’t get over the taste. Johnson & Wales University has developed an innovative technique that makes it relatively simple for consumers to produce whole-grain breads with rich flavors and pleasant textures.
The Pro Children Intervention could not increase the fruit and vegetable consumption of the mothers of participating pupils, which might be explained by the low involvement in the project. But the research showed that higher involvement levels were associated with higher intake among children at follow-up.