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Not everyone in the GOP thinks anti-obesity campaigns are lefty nanny state stuff.
Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to lower the rate of childhood obesity in the U.S. has met much derision since it was launched. Often the criticism came from politicians, who thought encouraging kids to jump rope and asking manufacturers to quit making such unhealthy stuff for kids was somehow government encroaching on our freedom to eat Pop-Tarts.
Recently, Sarah Palin and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann attacked the First Lady for the health initiatives, the former expressing concerned about a government ban on desserts, the latter pitching a fit over making breast pumps accessible to more nursing moms.
But a couple of high-profile members of the GOP have recently come out in support of the anti-obesity initiatives — two men who, themselves, have waged a lifelong battle with their weight. Continue reading »
Oh, go pose on a toilet with the breastfeeders!
Noriko Aita should have nudged in a little closer to a collection of nudes when she was nursing her daughter last month at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. Perhaps then a security guard wouldn’t have asked Aita to go sit on a toilet to finish up with the kid, what with art pieces’ actual exposed breasts and nipples, most not even in service of a hungry baby!
But she didn’t, and he did. And now D.C. area moms are going to remind the national museums and all the people who work for them that breastfeeding is neither an indecent act nor one of the half dozen good uses for a toilet. Continue reading »
Michelle Obama on child obesity
Today marks the first anniversary of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to fight childhood obesity. Let’s Move is a public health initiative she launched last February with the goal of ending the obesity epidemic within a generation.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to join a phone call with the First Lady as she and surgeon general Regina Benjamin spoke to the medical community about Let’s Move’s first year, the impact it has had, and goals for the future.
I heard some facts that I already knew, like that childhood obesity has more than tripled since the 1980s, and now one in three American kids is overweight or obese (40 percent of African American and Hispanic children).
And some facts I didn’t know: According to the Dr. Benjamin, a recent study showed that as early as three years old, kids who are overweight show an inflammatory response linked to heart disease later in life.
As Michelle Obama talked, I couldn’t help notice how little she resembled the nanny-state food-police some complain about. Here’s what she sounded like to me and what Let’s Move has accomplished so far: Continue reading »
First solids shouldn't come too soon.
No matter how emphatic your mother-in-law is on the topic, American pediatricians say you should really, really wait before introducing solids to infants. Even if she insists your baby will sleep better with a belly full of rice cereal, a new study from the Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard concludes that solids before 4 months of age increases your child’s risk for obesity.
That risk is even great if you start giving solids too soon to formula-fed babies. And you already know how doomed they are! (Kidding …) Continue reading »
One glass of soda can contain as much as 27 packets of sugar.
A new public service announcement by the New York City Health Department meant to draw attention to the effects of sugary drinks is being called too graphic by some. In it, the question arises about how much sugar you consume throughout a day in just drinks alone. In the video, it shows a person reaching for drinks over the course of a day. The results are that by the end of a day, the person has unwittingly consumed 93 packets of sugar.
That’s pretty alarming enough, but just watching the teen repeatedly pick up the soft drinks, it seems like much more than the typical person would have. The voice over says that while grabbing drinks throughout the day seems harmless enough, all that sugar can bring on obesity, which causes type 2 diabetes and heart disease. It then flashes to a photo of overweight people and then a graphic picture of toes that are gangrenous from diabetes complications.
Is this the answer to the childhood obesity epidemic?
George Ball, chairman and CEO of the garden company Burpee, wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day outlining why he believes the childhood obesity epidemic can be solved, in part, by introducing children to vegetable gardening. Ball cites research saying that kids who grow vegetables alongside their parents eat them regularly and with gusto. He’s calling on Americans to make 2011 “The Year of the Vegetable,” saying: “I am optimistic that 2011 will represent the beginning of a nutritional revolution in this country.”
Mr. Ball is in the business of selling seeds. Not that that makes the message he’s sending any less credible or important. But, I decided that I’d like to hear from a mom who’s started a veritable vegetable revolution of her own. Continue reading »
Too much of a good thing?
We’ve heard plenty of child obesity statistics in recent years — for example, the CDC says that obesity in kids has more than tripled since the 1980′s. But a large study published last week suggests that the problem may begin with babies as young as nine months old.
The researchers looked at data from almost 9,000 nine-month-olds and 7,500 two-year-olds from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort — a nationally representative sample of kids born in 2001. They considered babies and toddlers between the 85th and 95th percentile to be “at risk”, and those over the 95th percentile to be obese (this is the CDC’s definition).
At nine months, 32% of babies were over the 85th percentile, and 34% were above that mark when they reached two.
There’s nothing more delicious than a chubby baby, and like me I’m sure lots of moms and dads bristle at the term obesity being applied to our littlest munchkins.
But here’s why we should pay attention to this study: Continue reading »
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