Los Angeles Times, Tami Dennis, February 8, 2010
Sugar-sweetened sodas — with their high-glycemic load eliciting natural suspicion — have been linked with varying degrees of success to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. So scientists have been trying to clarify the precise nature and size of that risk.
Researchers at the University of Minnesotas School of Public Health noted that most of the studies along these lines have been in people of European descent. So they decided to cull through data from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, assessing whether sugar-sweetened soft drinks and juices had …

Walter Willett for Newsweek, February 5, 2010
Until last year, the residents of Albert Lea, Minn., were no healthier than any other Americans. Then the city became the first American town to sign on to the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project—the brainchild of writer Dan Buettner, whose 2008 book, The Blue Zones, detailed the health habits of the world’s longest-lived people. His goal was to bring the same benefits to middle America—not by forcing people to diet and exercise, but by changing their everyday environments in ways that encourage a healthier lifestyle.
What …

The New York Times, Hannah Wallace, February 5, 2010
About 20 high school students stood behind the butcher counter, staring at a 160-pound piece of meat from a recently slaughtered cow.
“All of our meat comes from local farms, and we get it all whole,” said Tom Mylan, 33, one of three butchers at the Meat Hook, a new butcher shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that buys its meat locally and prizes nose-to-tail eating. “We don’t just buy steaks or pork chops or whatever.”
“How much does the whole cow cost?” one boy in …

Los Angeles Times, Marni Jameson, February 1, 2010
Slim society’s tolerance is wearing thin.
As more people over the last decade have tipped the scales toward obesity, normal weight folks have signed up for employee wellness programs that offer them lower premiums and other financial perks as a reward for their healthy weight — and that indirectly penalize heavier workers. They’ve crafted policies, most unsuccessful, to compel individuals to lose weight. They’ve become vocal, sometimes vehemently so, in their support for “sin taxes” on junk food and soda. And they’ve increasingly attacked, …

The Huffington Post, Jeffrey Levi, February 1, 2010
One of the biggest public health crises our country has ever faced is finally getting serious attention.
During the State of the Union address Wednesday night, President Obama announced that First Lady Michelle Obama was going to take on the childhood obesity epidemic. I’d say the epidemic better watch out! It now has a worthy adversary.
Mrs. Obama is stepping up to provide leadership, recognizing if we don’t take serious measures now, this generation of kids could be the first in U.S. history to live …