January 29, 2012, CBS news, Bill Whitaker

New federal guidelines aimed at making school lunches more nutritious were announced this past week. It may seem like a welcome trend, but in the Los Angeles school district, many students are calling healthier inedible.

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that everything inside one L.A. school cafeteria may be nutritious, but few students have anything good to say about L.A.’s health lunch menus.

“It tastes bad. It looks bad. It doesn’t even look like it’s real food,” said Baleria Franco, a student at Hollywood High School.

“The healthier it gets, the more disgusting it is,” said student Kevin Albrecht.

Some can barely describe what “it” is.

“I guess it’s like wheat pasta, but it doesn’t look like pasta,” Franco said.

“It’s called a barbecue ‘sandwich’, but it looks like an imitation Sloppy Joe,” said student Marina Sangit.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. For the past ten years, the Los Angeles school district has been working to overhaul the menu. First to go: canned sodas. Then came the push for fresh fruits and vegetables, which today account for nineteen percent of total spending, up from just two percent in 2005.

Old standbys like corn dogs are out and turkey burgers are in – moves hailed by UCLA nutritionist Wendy Slusser.

“It is common sense to serve a child healthy food,” Slusser said. “The big question is why aren’t we all doing this. And it is because it is a shift, in where we were, and change takes time.”

READ MORE VIA Some call healthy L.A. school lunches inedible – CBS News.

January 28, 2012, Christina Hoag, AP, San Jose Mercury News

Students at Roosevelt High School have declared a food fight to win back peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Fed up with new, healthy cafeteria cuisine that features dishes like ancho chili chicken with yakosoba edamame and tortellini with butternut squash, they’re petitioning the school district to return old favorites like PB&J and calzones to the lunch lineup.

“We, the students of Roosevelt High School, would like to be served food that we can enjoy eating, rather than the ‘healthier’ food that we just throw away,” states the petition being circulated at the 3,200-student school located in a low income neighborhood just east of downtown Los Angeles.

School districts across the nation, including Los Angeles Unified, are revamping lunch trays to meet tighter federal nutrition standards designed to stem obesity, which affects about a third of children nationally. The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week announced new guidelines calling for milk to be skim or low-fat, grains to be whole, and double the amount of fruit and vegetables.

But as many parents can attest, getting kids to try new foods, especially ones that are good for them, can be a battle of wits and wills. Little kids tend to be less finicky than big kids, who look for that elusive factor of “coolness” in everything from fashion to French fries.

“Essentially, you’re competing with McDonald’s,” said Susan Levin, director of nutrition education for the
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Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, who works with school districts on their menus. “But it can be done.”

The emphasis on nutrition is a major swing from the 1990s when some schools featured brand-name fast-food burgers and pizza for lunch and sold potato chips, cookies and sodas in vending machines.
With national attention turning to climbing rates of childhood diabetes and other weight-related ailments, many districts have now outlawed everything from trans fats to deep-frying. Some have even dispensed with chocolate milk because of the added sugar.

But districts have found that getting kids to change eating habits isn’t easy, and involves both smarter menus and a dollop of marketing.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves 650,000 meals a day, saw school lunch participation plunge by some 12 percent after unveiling the new dishes. Kids have gradually come around—participation is now down by only 5 percent as compared to last year.

Chicago Public Schools saw a 5 percent drop when it did a menu makeover last year.

High school students have some of the toughest palates to please.
READ MORE via LA schools struggle to make healthy meals popular – San Jose Mercury News.

January 28, 2012, Brittany Givens, Seascoastonline.com

U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Kevin W. Concannon said school lunch programs should be providing children with more fruits and vegetables.

“We have a serious problem of obesity in the country,” Concannon told a group of local nutrition and health services professionals Friday. “We really need to focus on activity and healthy foods.”

Concannon was the featured speaker in a roundtable discussion at Community Campus. The event was attended by representatives from programs such as St. Vincent’s, Southern New Hampshire Services and the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. Participants discussed ways in which schools could improve lunches and how the USDA has been able to help people in tough economical times.

This week, 101,000 schools across the country celebrated a nutrition week by improving the dietary value of school lunch programs.

Concannon discussed ways that the USDA plans to take these efforts further and shared reasons for the program’s success. He said that one of the USDA’s major goals is to improve the diets of Americans from birth.

Representatives from local nutrition organizations voiced concerns over the current situation in schools. Many were concerned with the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables in schools and wanted to see less canned foods and sugar.

Other concerns included a need for more storage space for fruits and vegetables, as well as easier and cheaper ways to provide milk and meat.

Concannon also spoke about USDA’s efforts to help those who cannot afford to eat healthy.

“We’re living through a … tough time in the economy,” Concannon said. “I’ve been to food banks and pantries and I always hear, ‘I never thought I’d be here.’”

The USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has helped 46 million people, Concannon said.

via USDA official stresses need for nutrition in school food | SeacoastOnline.com.

January 25, 2012, Houston Chronicle

School lunches, long saddled with an unhealthy reputation, are getting a makeover.Instead of salt-doused fried foods, highly processed white bread and sugar-laden desserts, cafeteria trays will be carrying whole wheat pizza, leafy green and orange vegetables and fresh fruit.The changes, announced Wednesday by first lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, mark the first major nutritional adjustment to the $11 billion school meal program in 15 years.

Under the new guidelines, which were directed by the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, schools must limit calories, trans fat and sodium, while serving students a wider variety of fruit, vegetables and whole grains.The nutritional overhaul reflects both a societal shift toward a more health-conscious diet and a growing concern about childhood obesity, which affects 17 percent of the countrys children.”When we send our kids to school, we expect that they wont be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home,” Obama said in a statement.The updated regulations were first proposed a year ago, giving school districts the opportunity to make comments and revamp their menus.

After opposition by potato growers and food companies, Congress blocked proposed changes that would have limited starchy vegetables to two servings a week and required pizza makers to increase the amount of tomato paste to qualify as a vegetable serving.

Local districts effortsThe new rules, which will affect 32 million children, will be phased in over the next three years.Many Houston-area school districts have already taken steps to raise nutritional standards, instituting changes that mirror many of the new USDA requirements.

Read more via School lunches get a healthy makeover – Houston Chronicle.

January 10, 2012, CNN, Health.com, Anne Harding

[...] People tend to overeat in restaurants, but how can people fend off these extra calories? We can stay away from restaurants altogether, of course, but for most of us that’s not a viable — or particularly appealing — option.

A small new study, led by Timmerman and published this week in the Journal of Nutrition and Education Behavior, offers another potential strategy: mindful eating, a series of dining techniques that stress close attention to the enjoyment of eating and feelings of hunger and fullness.

The study included 35 middle-aged women who ate out at least three times per week and ranged in body size from slim to morbidly obese. (Roughly 30% of the women were dieting when they enrolled in the study, and another 23% were actively trying to maintain their weight.) The researchers randomly selected about half of the women to serve as a control group, and assigned the other half to a six-week mindful eating program.

The program consisted of weekly two-hour sessions in which an instructor taught the women how to limit overeating and make healthy food choices in different settings — choosing steamed rice instead of fried in Chinese restaurants, for example, or black beans instead of refried in Mexican restaurants. Then, at the end of each session, the women completed a mindful eating exercise, such as focusing on their feelings of hunger while eating cheese and crackers, or on their sensations of fullness while eating chocolate.

At the end of the program, the women were eating in restaurants (or ordering takeout) just as often as they had before — nearly six times a week, on average. Yet they’d lost an average of 3.75 pounds and were eating about 300 fewer calories per day. (Weight and calorie intake didn’t change in the control group.) What’s more, restaurant meals accounted for just 124 of those daily calories, suggesting that the participants were eating less at home, too.

Susan Albers, Psy.D., a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic and the author of “Eating Mindfully,” isn’t surprised that changes in eating behavior seemed to carry over from restaurants into the home, since she’s seen a similar transformation after teaching her patients mindful eating techniques.

“Once you’ve learned mindful eating skills, you tend to use them whether you are eating at your own kitchen table or at a five-star restaurant,” she says.

Mindful eating is an offshoot of “mindfulness,” a meditative frame of mind that involves practicing a concentrated, nonjudgmental awareness of one’s body and thoughts. Mindfulness belongs to the Buddhist tradition and has more recently been applied to Western psychology, stress and pain management, and the treatment of depression and anxiety.

When applied to eating, mindfulness is intended to correct Americans’ tendency to eat too fast, often while doing something else at the same time (such as watching TV). Not only do people tend to eat more when they’re not paying attention, but some evidence suggests that we even digest food less effectively.

“In general, we’ve lost the art of savoring food,” says Albers, who did not participate in Timmerman’s study. “We can eat an entire plate of food and not taste one bite. Mindful eating skills teach you how to eat less but enjoy it more.”

Read the entire article at Can mindfulness curb overeating? – CNN.com.

New Zealand, January 10, 2012, Voxy.co.nz

The national nutrition policy formulated by Labour and National-led Governments favours the food industry over public health according to new research from the University of Otago, Wellington.

The new findings result from a study of the 313 submissions to the Health Select Committee Inquiry into Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes held in 2006. This study compared the positions taken by submitters from the food industry and public health groups, such as the National Heart Foundation.

These positions were then compared with the 2007 Labour Government’s response to the committee’s recommendations and the resulting national nutrition policy.

The research focused on 19 recommendations in four areas of nutrition policy: the national obesity strategy; regulation of the food industry; regulation of marketing and advertising; and school environments.

The research found that the Labour Government supported the food industry position in 13 of the 19 recommendations, against 5 where they supported the public health position. Importantly, the Government sided with industry in rejecting key committee recommendations for front-of-pack labelling and restrictions on TV advertising of unhealthy food. Only in the area of school environments did the Labour Government agree with the public health position by requiring schools to sell and promote only healthy foods.

This school nutrition policy was subsequently overturned by the National-led Government, suggesting a strengthening of industry’s influence on our national nutrition policy, says study lead author Dr Gabrielle Jenkin.

“Allowing schools to profit from the sale of unhealthy foods to their students is personally concerning to me as a parent, and should send alarm bells to other parents,” says Dr Jenkin.

She says that the public needs to consider who benefits from the current epidemic in obesity.

“The continuing trend of policy favouring the food industry is dangerous as we’re now the third most obese country in the developed world according to the OECD, with 63% of adults either overweight or obese.”

Like many developed nations such as the USA, New Zealand has a multi-million dollar health problem with increasing type 2 diabetes, directly related to an energy-dense (high fat and high sugar) diet associated with highly processed and fast foods.

International research indicates that many governments support the commercial interests of major industrial sectors like the food industry, over strategies to improve public health. These industries are often large investors and employers, and in New Zealand, central to the economy.

However this does not take into account collateral damage, the huge future health costs for diabetes, and indirect costs due to lost productivity. The study notes that current policy tends to be based on industry self regulation, leaving the responsibility of good nutrition up to the individual, but in an environment which encourages obesity and weight gain (‘obesogenic’).

“It’s obvious this self-regulatory model is a failure. The food industry continues to make large profits on the back of deteriorating public health, with the subsequent burden on the taxpayer to fund the health system. An effective public health strategy to address the obesogenic environment is needed if we are to control the escalating health costs,” says Dr Jenkin.

The study concludes that solutions lie in regulating the food industry, regulating the advertising and marketing industries, and limiting the involvement of the food industry in policy making to ensure fair treatment of public health concerns.

This study has been published in the international journal Public Health Nutrition and was funded by the Health Research Council.

via Nutrition policy favours food industry, not public health – study | Voxy.co.nz.

Health Department Launches New Ad Campaign Spotlighting Increasing Portion Sizes and Their Devastating Consequences

New York City subway posters encourage New Yorkers to cut their portions to reduce their risk of health problems

The Health Department today launched a new hard-hitting ad campaign urging New Yorkers to be more aware of portion sizes – and how they have increased – when choosing what to eat or drink. The quantity of food served in a “medium” or “large” order is significantly greater today than in previous years.

In the last 50 years, for example, the serving sizes of sugary drinks quadrupled and french fries nearly tripled. With a few casual selections, a single meal could balloon to contain many more calories than the amount an adult needs for an entire day. This new campaign, along with the City’s ongoing requirement that chain restaurants post calorie counts, will continue to provide New Yorkers with the information they need to make healthier choices.

“The portion sizes that are marketed are often much more than humans need,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley “We are warning people about the risks of super-size portions so they can make more informed choices about what they eat. Consuming too many calories can lead to weight gain, which greatly increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. If New Yorkers cut their portions, they can cut their risk of these health problems.”

In one of the new posters, available in English and Spanish, a man with type 2 diabetes and an amputated leg sits behind a graphic showing how soda portions have increased over time. “Cut your portions. Cut your risk,” the text reads below, providing New Yorkers with a clear strategy for preventing obesity and its health consequences.

While the City has made strides in combating the nationwide trend of growing obesity, the majority of adult New Yorkers (nearly 57%) and two out of every five New York City elementary school children remain overweight or obese and the health consequences are dire, ranging from hypertension to type 2 diabetes. Nearly 10% of New Yorkers have been told they have type 2 diabetes, which can lead to blindness, kidney failure and amputations. In 2006, nearly 3,000 New Yorkers with diabetes were hospitalized for amputations. Obese children and adolescents also are more likely to become obese adults. Even while young, they are more likely to develop obesity-related conditions such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes.

Most adults only need to eat 2,000 calories per day, and children need even fewer. But with Americans eating out more often than they did 40 years ago, staying within these recommendations has become more difficult. A beverage at a fast food chain has increased fourfold since 1955, from 7 ounces to 32 ounces. During the same time, french fry portions have more than doubled, from 2.4 ounces to 5.4 ounces. As a result, recent studies show that one-third of New Yorkers eating at chain restaurants consume more than 1,000 calories at lunchtime alone.

A packet of materials containing valuable information on portion control, along with other tips for making healthy choices, is available by calling 311 and asking for the Healthy Eating Packet, which includes:

• Counting Calories? Read ‘Em Before You Eat ‘Em brochure: provides information on daily calorie needs and tips for making healthy choices
• Are You Pouring on the Pounds? Health Bulletin: provides tips on how to cut back on soda, juice and other sugary drinks

• Make New York City Your GymHealth Bulletin: provides information on the importance of being physically active and gives tips on how to incorporate free or low-cost exercise into daily routines
• Eating Out, Eating WellHealth Bulletin: provides information on making smart choices when eating out

• My Plate Planner placemat and magnets: provides guidance on creating a healthy and balanced meal for both adults and children

via Health Department Launches New Ad Campaign Spotlighting Increasing Portion Sizes and Their Devastating Consequences.

January 4, 2012, Fox News, Chris Kilham

Americans are living longer than ever before. As a result of greatly improved sanitation, hygiene, nutrition, life-saving drugs and medical care, lifespan has increased significantly.

At the time of the American Revolution in 1776, the average life expectancy in the United States was a paltry 30 years of age. Back then, you had to make your mark early, because your stay in this world was likely to be brief.

Today, the average American life expectancy is close to 80, and the fastest growing segment of the American population is adults 85 years or older.

Whereas age 65 was once considered old, now it’s just upper middle age.

The population group that will live longer than any other thus far is the baby boomer generation, which accounts for a whopping 76 million adults and represents 42 percent of all Americans over 21. This generation initiated a gerontological explosion in the year 2011, as its earliest members turned 65.

While there may not be an actual fountain of youth, we are continually re-defining old age and pushing the limits of lifespan further and further.

And now the bad news
Increased lifespan may sound like a dream come true. But it may be a nightmare in progress. Unless we assume far greater responsibility for our health, current increases in longevity spell decrepitude and financial disaster for millions of Americans.

If rates of disease and disability continue at their current levels, America will become a nation of sick, senile, disenfranchised, impoverished seniors, with too few resources to care for them and astronomical medical costs that will cripple our economy.

Consider the following: The average American over the age of 65 suffers multiple chronic conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, hearing and vision disorders. This group accounts for one third of all health care spending, one third of prescription drug use and 40 percent of doctor visits.

Over 25 percent of those 85 or older require institutional care. Unless the economic structure of the nation is substantially re-vamped, Medicare will run out of funds by 2029. Suddenly, the idea of living 100 years or more loses some of its luster.
Sobering health figures

The following figures underscore the serious health challenges we face as we age.

Cardiovascular disease
-According to the American Heart Association, approximately 1 million American adults die annually of heart attack.
-An estimated half million Americans suffer strokes annually, thirty percent of which result in death.

Cancer
-According to the American Cancer Society, 1 out of every 3 Americans (more than 86 million Americans alive today, will get cancer.
-1.35 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year.
-538,000 Americans will die of cancer this year.

Arthritis
-Arthritis is the number one cause of disability in the US.
-According to the Arthritis Foundation, 40 million Americans have arthritis.
-According to the Centers for Disease Control, by 2020, 59.4 million Americans will have arthritis.

Diabetes
-According to the American Diabetes Association, 16 million Americans have diabetes.
-800,000 diabetics are insulin – dependent.
-400,000 people die each year from diabetes.
-Each year 625,000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed.

Obesity
-According to national health statistics, 62 percent of Americans are overweight. Many are obese, exceeding recommended weights by 25 percent or more.

Alzheimer’s disease
-According to the Alzheimer’s Foundation, 4 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.
-14 million Americans are expected to have Alzheimer’s by the year 2050.
-One in 10 persons over 65 develops Alzheimer’s.
-50 percent of those over 85 develop Alzheimer’s.

Faced with the magnitude of such a great aging explosion, we can’t expect our medical system to catch us as we fall.

Health care in the U.S. is currently in crisis, and many people have lost confidence in medicine. Medical services are expensive, and insurance is becoming prohibitively costly.

The great majority of doctors are specialists in disease care, not in prevention and are primarily familiar with drugs and surgery. Thus preventing disease and designing programs to keep people fit for life are largely enterprises outside of the medical realm.

Health is not a medical condition, and physicians are not the gatekeepers of fitness and wellness. We are our own gatekeepers.

Large numbers of people are venturing outside of the conventional medical establishment in a quest to manage and promote their own health, fitness and well being. They are becoming much more active in finding ways to deal with common ailments on their own.

This signifies a profound shift toward self directed health care. In response to this shift, medical educators are beginning to grapple with wellness and prevention as areas of medical specialty. This is critically important, for if physicians are going to play any significant future role in keeping our aging population healthy, they must be become astute specialists in prevention, fitness and wellness.

Increasing fitness span
The shape of the future is ours to determine. Will we live to be energetic, healthy centenarians, or will we spend the last decades of our lives sick, incapacitated and institutionalized? The issue is one of fitness span.

Lifespan is how long you live. Fitness span is how long you stay fit and healthy. Getting fit is a necessity, not an option.

Health and fitness begin to decline at around age 40 when age-related degenerative conditions begin to take their toll. Our task is to extend fitness span to match life span, so we stay fit and healthy until we die.
In the quest for health, millions of Americans are turning to alternative and complementary therapies and products, including supplements, herbs, and homeopathic medicines.

News media are now promoting the safety, efficacy and overall wellness benefits of these programs and products, and scientists continue to affirm that these approaches impart real health benefits that treat ailments ranging from indigestion to allergies.

True fitness is a state of wellness, abundant energy and a feeling of being whole and intact. It is a dynamic, vital condition which must be managed daily. Since this is an inalterable fact of life, you might as well dive into this endeavor wholeheartedly, with a galvanized and enthusiastic determination to stay fit for as long as you live.

Read more: Health Challenges Facing Baby Boomers | Fox News.

December 21, 2011, Los Angeles Times, Shari Roan

Feeding young babies solid foods such as crackers, cereals and bread, which tend to be high in salt, may set them up for a lifelong preference for salt, researchers reported Tuesday.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggests that efforts to reduce salt intake among Americans should begin early in life.

It is even possible, the authors said, that infancy contains a “sensitivity window” in which exposure to certain foods and tastes programs the brain to desire them in the future.

Americans’ fondness for salt, a source of dismay for health experts, is well known. A 2010 report from the Institute of Medicine concluded that the average intake of 3,436 milligrams a day for Americans over age 2 is more than double what is recommended, and that new government standards are needed to reduce the salt content in processed and restaurant food.

But little is known about the biology behind our love affair with salt. Researchers don’t even know what receptors are involved in tasting it. And though babies are born with a clear preference for sweet foods and an absolute distaste for bitter foods, they appear indifferent to salt in the first few months of life, said Leslie Stein, the lead author of the study and a senior research associate at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

“When you give 2-month-old babies salt water, they have no facial expression,” Stein said. “This could mean that the baby doesn’t detect the salt or just doesn’t give a hoot about it.”

To get at the issue, Stein and her colleagues first gave 61 healthy 2-month-old infants a mild solution of salt water: Based on facial expressions and how much they drank, the authors concluded the infants indeed were indifferent to the taste.

READ MORE via Giving salty food to babies may create a lifelong preference – latimes.com.

December 15, 2011, Huffington Post

When the USDA revised its official dietary guidelines for optimum health in June, nutrition experts generally agreed that MyPlate was better than the Food Pyramid that preceded it. Some, includingMarion Nestle and researchers from Harvard, had quibbles with MyPlates’ exact specifications — some said that meat and dairy were over-emphasized — few said that following the guidelines, especially on fruit and vegetable consumption, would be a bad thing.

But even if it’s healthy, it doesn’t look easy. The recommendations call for Americans to eat around three cups of vegetables and two cups of fruits every day. That’s a lot! Almost two whole cups of produce per meal. It always seems like eating as many whole grains, fruits and vegetables would necessitate eating a lot more food than normally seems wise — if not more calories.

And, indeed, a new study from the NPD Group shows that, even if MyPlate’s recommendations are healthy and easy to understand, they aren’t being followed by many Americans. The Group looked at long-term data on American eating habits and found that most surveyed individuals came close to meeting the USDA’s nutritional guidelines on only 2% of days in a year. That’s about a week out of the year.

The group’s threshold for “came close to meeting the nutritional guidelines” wasn’t even that high: someone had to eat just 70% of the guidelines to count as a yes. Moreover, the days on which the guidelines were met were also those on which the Americans ate the most.

via MyPlate Recommendations Actually Followed By Americans Just 2% Of Time.