Health ministers, alarmed at the growing number of obese children, agreed on Thursday to try to reduce children’s consumption of junk food and soft drinks by asking member states to restrict advertising and marketing.
Reuters, Stephani Nebehay, May 20, 2010
The global recommendations on marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children are guidelines to the 193 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Diets containing large amounts of fat, sugar or salt contribute to chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancers, which cause 60 percent of all deaths …

San Fransisco Chronicle, Susanne Leigh, May 24, 2010
Like many midlife adults, Ken Holmes noticed that the toned abs of his 20s had billowed into a fistful of flab. He blamed long drives from his Sunset District home to jobs as a program consultant in Silicon Valley and the East Bay, together with extended workdays spent deskbound tinkering with software. In his childless days, Holmes would have offset these sedentary periods with frequent punishing workouts. But now with two elementary-school-age children, the gym was relegated to the back burner.
Still, Holmes was …

Nutrition Action Healthletter Exposes 9 Caloric Heavyweights
May 24, 2010
WASHINGTON—Would you top a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza with six Taco Bell Crunchy beef Tacos? And then eat the whole thing? Well, pass the Pepto-Bismol, please: The nutrition and food safety watchdogs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest today conferred its Xtreme Eating awards on nine items from seven American restaurant chains.
“One might think that chains like Outback Steakhouse and The Cheesecake Factory might want to lighten up their meals now that calories will be required on …

The New York Times,  ALESSANDRA STANLEY, May 17, 2010

There are two Americas.

One is a ruling minority of the healthy few who rely on vegetable gardens, personal trainers and spa getaways to stay fit. The other is the majority of Americans, who are overweight or obese, many of whom risk their own form of assisted living — XXXL clothes, mobility scooters and diabetes treatments that can tip over $50,000 a year.
“One Nation, Overweight” is a CNBC documentary on Tuesday that provides a chilling portrait of a health epidemic that endangers all …

The New York Times, Roni Caryn Rabin, May 10, 2010
Schoolchildren are more likely to be bullied if they are overweight, and a new study suggests just how much more likely: 60 percent more, if they are obese (with a body mass index in the 95th percentile for children in their age group), and 13 percent more, if they are simply overweight (85th percentile or higher).
The researchers also tried to determine if overweight children from certain backgrounds were more vulnerable than others, and if some had social skills or other characteristics …

Center for American Progress, By Ellen-Marie Whelan, Lesley Russell, Sonia Sekhar | May 10, 2010
Obese American children and teenagers today are on track to have poor health throughout their adult lives. Overall, this next generation of Americans could be the first to have shorter, less healthy lives than their parents. Childhood obesity rates have more than tripled since 1980, and current data show that almost one-third of children over 2 years of age are already overweight or obese.
Download the full report (pdf)
Download the executive summary (pdf)
Obese children and adolescents are more likely to …

ZDnet, Dana Blankenhorn | May 4, 2010,
To all the cries of “big brother” and “nanny state” that come here whenever I touch on preventable causes of death and campaigns to fight back I have one word.
Oregon.
A study published in Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine this week describes a childhood obesity epidemic that has gotten noticeably worse since 2003.
Nearly one-third of all school-age children in 2007 were overweight, the study says, and nearly 22% of Mississippi kids were clinically obese, headed for a short life of heart attacks and diabetes.
The exception? Oregon, …

WHEN most people think of hunger in America, the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail-thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk.
But a recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals ofobesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well …

The more obese a woman is when she becomes pregnant, the greater the likelihood that her baby will be born with a heart defect, a U.S. government study finds.
Using a database of births in New York State over a decade, researchers found that obese women were 11 percent more likely than normal-weight women to have a baby with a congenital heart defect.
Meanwhile, women who were morbidly obese — or about 100 pounds over their ideal weight — had a 33 percent higher risk than normal-weight women did.
Congenital heart defects are …

The growing rate of obesity in young Americans could undermine the future of the United States military, as many potential recruits are too overweight to join, two retired generals stated on Friday.
In a commentary written by retired generals John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, two former chairs of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said: “Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military.”
The commentary, which appeared in the Washington Post, said that recruits were disqualified from possible service for obesity far more than for …