December 15, 2011. LiveScience.com, Joseph Brownstein, MyHealthNewsDaily
Displaying the amount of time you’d need to jog in order to burn off the calories from a sugary drink, rather than showing a calorie count, may be more effective in dissuading you from consuming those beverages, new research suggests.
Researchers observed teenagers at stores in West Baltimore, where signs displayed either calorie counts, calorie counts as a percent of recommended daily calorie intake, or the time spent jogging that would be needed to burn off those calories. While all led teenagers to purchase fewer …

December 14, 2011, Brittni Johnson, Winter Park/Maitland observer
For Marva Forbes and her family, dinner was coming home, hot oil in a pan and frying up some chicken.
“As a rule,” she said.
There was also lots of pizza, McDonald’s and chips and candy for snacks. Not much thought went behind planning meals for her family, which includes three of her children and two grandchildren.
“Our eating habits were: we just ate,” Forbes said.
That is until four years ago, when her 6-year-old grandson started going to Winter Park Day Nursery. The nursery, which offers free …

December 8, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle, Erin Allday
Santa Clara County’s ban on fast-food toys for kids has had no effect on the nutritional quality of the meals served there, but the restaurants are doing a better job of promoting the right food, or at least not promoting the junk, Stanford researchers say.
In a report published today, Stanford scientists found that Santa Clara County fast-food restaurants – unlike some of their peers in San Francisco, where restaurants got around a similar ban by charging a dime for toys – seem to …

December 2, 2011, Shreveport Times
Rachel Boogaerts is dispensing a dose of nutrition advice disguised as play to youngsters in Shreveport.
A graduate student at Louisiana Tech University, Boogaerts plans to become a dietitian. She developed a game based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate meal guidelines with help from Deborah Harris, director of the Caddo Parish school system’s child nutrition program. She tested the activity with members of the Physical Activity and Wellness Club at Fairfield Elementary Magnet School in Shreveport.
Teams of Fairfield students raced to build the healthiest plate, …

The Vancouver Sun, December 1, 2011 Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News
CANADA – The federal government has abruptly stopped testing grocery-store product labels for exaggerated nutrition claims and unproven health claims, Postmedia News has learned.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency put the sampling program “on hold indefinitely due to budgetary constraints” after test results from previous years showed widespread problems with food labels on store shelves, according to internal records released under access to information.
The controversial decision was taken just days before the 2011/12 fiscal year started in April, minutes of a meeting …

AP, Marilynn Marchione, December 1, 2011
It’s true — apple juice can pose a risk to your health. But not necessarily from the trace amounts of arsenic that people are arguing about.
Despite the government’s consideration of new limits on arsenic, nutrition experts say apple juice’s real danger is to waistlines and children’s teeth. Apple juice has few natural nutrients, lots of calories and, in some cases, more sugar than soda has. It trains a child to like very sweet things, displaces better beverages and foods, and adds to the obesity problem, …

CNN Madison Park, November 30, 2011
Goodbye, free plastic toys inside Happy Meals — at least in one major California city.
A new San Francisco law goes into effect on Thursday that prevents fast-food restaurants from giving away trinkets, action figures and other toys in their kid’s meals unless their food meets nutritional requirements.
And McDonald’s kid’s meals do not. The meals have to be less than 600 calories and contain fruits (a half-cup) and vegetables (3/4 of a cup). They must have less than 35% of the total calories coming from fat, …

Via Yahoo News, AP, Mary Clare Jalonick
Who needs leafy greens and carrots when pizza and french fries will do?
In an effort many 9-year-olds will cheer, Congress wants pizza and french fries to stay on school lunch lines and is fighting the Obama administration’s efforts to take unhealthy foods out of schools.
The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting …

Subway posters map how far you’d have to walk to burn off the calories from just one sugary drink
Oct. 24, 2011 – New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley today unveiled a new Health Department education campaign that describes how drinking just one 20 ounce soda a day translates to eating 50 pounds of sugar a year. The 30-second TV spot will air on major broadcast and cable TV stations over the next two months as a stark reminder to New Yorkers about how sugary drinks can lead to …

18 October, 2011, Huffinton Post, Abdulrahman El-Sayed
Its well known that Americans pay more for less when it comes to healthcare than just about any other country in the world. In 2009, we spent nearly $8,000 per person to provide medical care to just over 80% of our population — that compares, for example, to just under $3,500 spent per person in the UK to provide care for the entire population. To add injury to insult: our counterparts across the pond get an extra year of life for their $3,500 than we …