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Nutrition and Physical Activity Blog

Michelle Obama: School Lunch Should be a Lesson

Jun 2

Posted by Morten in School nutrition | Comments off

On Friday, the First Lady made a visit to Bancroft Elementary School to talk to the students who helped her plant the White House vegetable garden, and she once again stressed the importance of healthy eating. As she has said before, Mrs. Obama told students and parents that she turned to take-out and processed foods during the campaign, and that she “started to see that taking a toll on our health.”

Legislators and USDA officials are slowly starting to talk about school meals as a health initiative.

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Real Food Can Be Cheaper Than Junk Food

Jun 2

Posted by Morten in Food service | Comments off

But if you don’t have a kitchen it is really hard to cook.

When you suggest that people buy rice, pasta, and beans, you presuppose that they have resources for capital investment for future meals: a kitchen, pots, pans, utensils, gas, electricity, a refrigerator, a home with rent paid, the time to cook. Those healthy rice and beans can take hours; another class bias is that poor people’s time is worthless.

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Many teens wired, caffeinated well past bedtime

Jun 2

Posted by Morten in Nutrition and obesity | Comments off

Caffeine-fueled teens are texting, Web-surfing and gaming for hours into the night, which is affecting their alertness and ability to function during the day, a new study in Pediatrics shows.

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How about a unified front of package label?

Jun 2

Posted by Morten in Food labeling, Food marketing | 1 Comment

Hemi from fooducate.com did a great job formulating a list of 9 urgent items on his wishlist for FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg starting on her first full week in office today. These include:

1. Free packaged foods of “health claims“, which are actually marketing claims, by banning them altogether. A reminder to our readers, “health claims” are a concession that the US lawmaker gave to the powerful food industry lobby in the early 90’s when the Nutrition Education and Labeling Act was being negotiated. The result of that law is the nutrition label as we know it today.

2. Please stop the practice of rounding down to zero. Manufacturers are legally allowed to claim a product has 0 trans fat even if a serving contains 0.49 grams. And since we all know people consume much more than the formal serving size, they can get much more than the 0 trans fat they were expecting.

3. Serving Size – Here are some ridiculous examples – 11 potato chips, 2 Oreo cookies. Come on, even 3 year olds eat more than that in a sitting. The reason serving sizes are so minute is to make them appear less caloric/fat/salty/sweet in the nutrition label. Please help manufacturers give us accurate info.

4. How about a unified front of package label? These labels are supposed to be a quick glance way for a consumer to decide if a product is nutrtious enough ro not. With all the new formats sprouting like mad (NuVal, Smart Choices, Guiding Stars, etc..), consumers are more confused than ever. Why not adopt a system such as UK’s Traffic Lights? Yes, it irritates food manufacturers, but hey, you are supposed to protect us consumers.

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Can the private sector improve public health?

May 29

Posted by Morten in Food labeling, Food marketing, Food service, Policy | Comments off

Policy interventions to encourage healthy eating in European member states have included prohibitions on advertising certain foods to children, promotion of fruit and vegetable consumption, nutrition labelling, dialogue with the food industry to improve food product composition, regulation of school meals and public sector canteens to ensure healthy food offerings. To date, these have not been systematically evaluated.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a clear rationale for further government involvement in food choice. Obesity, driven partly by food choice, now accounts for between 5 and 7% of total health care costs in the EU. In addition to its contribution via obesity, poor dietary quality directly contributes to a range of preventable diseases that raise health care costs.” Obesity has been estimated to cost the EU some €70 billion annually through health care costs and lost productivity.

The new 3 year 2.5 million euros European research project, EATWELL, led by the University of Reading, will, for the first time, catalogue these interventions, evaluating what has worked well and why. It will investigate how the public sector can effectively market promising dietary interventions to the population, and what attitudinal barriers may be faced in implementation in the range of countries.

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After-Hours Use of Public School Property

May 29

Posted by Morten in Playgrounds, Policy | Comments off

Schools and local governments can help prevent childhood obesity by  opening school buildings and facilities—such as gymnasiums, playgrounds, fields, courts, and tracks—to public use after school hours. School officials may be reluctant to do so, however, because of concerns about liability in the event of injuries.

Legal advise is now avaliable for free here: Read more

Takeaway food consumption and its association with diet quality and abdominal obesity: a cross-sectional study of young adults

May 28

Posted by Morten in Food service | Comments off

A national sample of 1,277 Australian men and 1,585 women aged 26-36 completed a self-administered questionnaire on demographic and lifestyle factors, a 127 item food frequency questionnaire, usual daily frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption and usual weekly frequency of takeaway food consumption.

After adjusting for confounding variables (age, leisure time physical activity, TV viewing and employment status), consuming takeaway food twice a week or more was associated with a 31% higher prevalence of moderate abdominal obesity in men and a 25% higher prevalence in women.

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Gratis foredrag om fødevaretrends

May 28

Posted by Morten in Sprog: Dansk | Comments off

Instituttet for Fremtidsforskning præsenterer sammen med INCO Danmark de trends, som Instituttet vurderer, vil påvirke fremtiden for mærkevareproducenter og fødevarebranchen generelt samt konsekvenserne af finanskrisen.

Det sker d. 16. juni kl. 15.30-17.00, Flæsketorvet 91, 1711 Kbh. V.  Mødet er især rettet mod mærkevareproducenter.

Tilmelding nødvendig. Læs her hvordan.

Transportministeriets pulje til mere cykeltrafik

May 27

Posted by Morten in Sprog: Dansk | Comments off

Nu kan der ansøges om midler fra “Pulje til mere cykeltrafik”. Ansøgningsfrist i 2009 er 17. august kl. 10.

I 2009 er der afsat en pulje på 100 mio. kroner til tilskud, som der nu kan ansøges om. Ansøgere kan opnå enten 30% eller 50% tilskud. Samlet drejer det sig om i alt 1 mia. kroner i perioden 2009-2014. Midlerne vil blive anvendt til dels statsvejsprojekter dels tilskud til projekter i kommuner, organisationer og virksomheder.

Puljen til mere cykeltrafik blev fastlagt som en del af aftalen om en grøn transportpolitik af 29. januar 2009. Formålet er at forbedre forholdene for cyklister, så cyklen bliver en mere attraktiv transportform.

Læs here her

Games for Health

May 27

Posted by Morten in Physical Activity, Playgrounds | Comments off

The 5th Annual Games for Health Conference is coming to Boston on June 11-12 2009 with a packed lineup of speakers from game development firms, health and medical institutions, academic and research institutions etc.

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