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 7, 2011
Parents have good reason to worry about the sugar content of children’s breakfast cereals, according to an Environmental Working Group review of 84 popular brands.
Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, at nearly 56 percent sugar by weight, leads the list of the 10 worst children’s cereals, according to EWG’s analysis. In fact, a one-cup serving of the brand packs more sugar than a Hostess Twinkie, and one cup of any of the 44 other children’s cereals has more sugar than three Chips Ahoy! cookies.
In response to the exploding childhood obesity epidemic and aggressive food company …

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, …

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, …

September 29, 2011, Yahoo News
Despite some evidence that taking fish oil pills during pregnancy can help children’s brain development, a new study suggests that the supplements make no difference in measures of intellect when the kids are six years old.
The findings support the results of an earlier Norwegian study that also found no differences in IQ among seven-year-olds whose mothers did or did not take fish oil supplements while pregnant and breastfeeding.
Fatty acids, such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), that are found in fish and other foods are considered to be …

Washington Post, Jane Black, June 9, 2010
With the spotlight on childhood obesity, schools across the country are looking for ways to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. In New York, the Department of Health decided to do some research. How much, it wondered, would a school need to cut its prices for apples, oranges and bananas to increase sales by 5 percent over a year?
Brian Wansink was called in to play detective. But the director of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab soon discovered he had been hired to …

The New York Times, Sewell Chan, June 3, 2010
WASHINGTON — Maybe it should have just stuck with Snap, Crackle and Pop.
The Kellogg Company has agreed to advertising restrictions to resolve an investigation into its claims about the health benefits of its Rice Krispies cereal, the Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday.
The agreement expands on a settlement order that Kellogg agreed to last July over similar claims that another cereal, Frosted Mini-Wheats, was “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20 percent.”
The commission acted against Kellogg as public health researchers …

The Guardian, Jo Tuckman, May 27, 2010
The Mexican government is to ban junk food and fry-ups in primary and secondary schools in an effort to combat one of the worst obesity problems in the world.
From the beginning of the next school year, school shops will no longer be allowed to stock fizzy drinks, sugar-stuffed fruit juices, processed snacks, or more local delights such as chilli soaked sweets. Nor will school kitchens offer traditional standards such as fried tacos.
“The kids are going to complain, of course,” the education minister Alonso Lujambio …

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 …