Some people are irate that a new series of short TV ads by Blue Cross in Minnesota, aimed at getting parents to think about the food-related example they're setting, implies Moms and Dads are to blame for their kids' overweight. They say a parent's ephiphany about his influence amounts to "shaming" them. I disagree.
One of the controversial ads, below, notes how children mimic their parents. A second ad in a fast-food restaurant (called "Eating Out") shows a dad bringing his heavily-laden tray to the table, catching his son and friend bragging about the amounts their fathers can consume. The underlying assumption is, of course, that obesity is an epidemic and scourge that will lead to all sorts of health problems for children, and that its cause is too much unhealthy food, provided by parents. That may be erroneous, but the theme of the ads is "today is the day:" Now, rather than later, is the time to improve.
I'm writing a book on the obesity issue, and my work leads me to conclude that the nation's expanding girth cannot be attributed to junk food. I've found there are dozens of possible causes for the rise in obesity rates that started in 1980 and leveled off in 2000. It's unlikely that, as in the following ad, people's shopping carts overflow only with cookies, chips, sugary cereals and soda pop (and nothing fresh).
But no one can debate the notion that parents are powerful models for their children, and good parents want their children to emulate healthful behaviors. I say there's nothing wrong with reminding parents that their actions shape their children.
Being a "good example" is a worthy goal in every aspect of life. Considering the idea--and its immediacy--can relate to myriad spheres. Moms can ask themselves if they're modeling for daughters desirable ways to talk to a spouse; fathers might wonder if they're conveying to their sons what a husband should be. Everyone can watch their interactions with others to be sure they're kindly--e.g. Are phone conversations polite?
No parent on earth thinks junk food only is a healthy diet, though I've nothing against junk food, as long as a person chooses it in response to his own body's signals--in which case it's likely to be but a small part of an overall picture. Well-meaning authorities' pronouncements or emotional issues can interfere with the natural connection to one's physical nutritional needs; we're programmed to be omnivores. Unfortunately, our culture tells us to disregard that in favor of some program or rules devised by an expert.
My research suggests that most overweight and obese individuals are not to blame for their sizes (there are many hypotheses about cause, including a cold virus, environmental toxins, genetic and hormonal changes). It's cruel and harsh that our society confers diminshed respect on its larger members, often denying them recognition or even common courtesies because of unfair disdain. Embarrassing or shaming are unacceptable approaches to anyone--but these ads really don't do that.
Instead, they offer empowerment. Some people just don't consider the effects of what they're doing, and they could. The mom whose shopping cart is filled only with junk food is probably a fantasy, and how many kids get in verbal war about whose dad can eat more? But that's not the point of these messages. They let parents pause to consider their role as teacher in their everyday behavior, and take it a step further by urging adults to improve now.
By the way, taking responsibility is a theme in the health-promoting Blue Cross ad series. Nobody's complaining about the one that chides people for their own lack of discipline, using a parody of the song "Tomorrow" from the play "Annie" (below). I don't see much difference between taking responsibility for one's own unhealthy choices (smoking, being sedentary, pigging out) and a parent taking responsibility for the food environment of his children at home. I do not think parents should force any food choices on children, but at the same time, a parent realizing where she can make positive differences in her family's lives today is motivating and uplifting.
Showing posts with label junk food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label junk food. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Junk Food in Schools Doesn't Affect Childhood Obesity--Despite New School Meals Regulations
Just catching up on the newspaper and came across two items that show that all the tax dollars and excitement funnelled into curbing childhood obesity goes largely to waste. Both appeared in the New York Times--one reports on a study that compares students in schools that sell junk snacks with kids whose schools didn't, and it followed the ones who moved from one type of school to the other.
The second item was a front-page story discussing the merits of bariatric surgery--stomach stapling or banding to reduce the amount that can be consumed--for obese teenagers. It followed 17-year-old New Yorker Shani Gofman through the process until she was 20, and along the way weighs the pros and cons of this type of obesity treatment.
Both suggest the same conclusion: Childhood obesity rates won't respond to conventional, ie current (expensive, extensive) efforts to to lower them.
Results of research at Pennsylvania State University about the effects of junk food in schools are especially pertinent this week as the White House, in concert with the USDA, announced its new regulations for the food content of school breakfast and lunch programs. The rationale for this aspect of Michelle Obama's $4.5-billion, 10-year Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is that tweaking the formulation of foods required for school meals will make kids thinner and therefore healthier, as well as model menus they'll emulate later.
That's kind of the idea behind replacing sugary, salty snacks sold in school vending machines with healthy alternatives. To see if this made any difference in middle and high-schoolers' girth, sociologists looked at students' longitudinal profiles, following them in and out of "competitive food environments" (ie schools with vending machines selling junk food). They also investigated whether gender, socio-economic status and race/ethnicity played into the vending machine-obesity issue.
Answer: No. Children's BMIs had no relationship to any of those factors. The study's lead researcher, Jennifer Van Hook, said, "Food preferences are established early in life. This problem of childhood obesity cannot be placed solely in the hands of schools."
Ahh, but those are the only hands the Feds can control. So they've now constrained local schools' freedom to decide what's good and feasible for their populations. And what are these enlightened changes? Not much, except now lunches will have more. More fruits and veggies specifically, moving from a half-cup to a cup of veggies per meal, for example, (with types of veggies now specified) and adding to that same tray a half-cup of fruit. Starting this year, half of bread stuffs will be whole-grains, moving to all whole-grain by July 1, 2014. And no more whole milk allowed; low fat only.
The feds know adding all these extra requirements is expensive, so they've agreed to spend six cents per meal of your tax dollars to subsidize the changes. If you look at the USDA's comparison of what those menus look like compared to the old ones, you'll see--there's basically just a lot more food.
Take any menu they offer as an example--say, Tuesday. The old, supposedly obesity-producing lunch offered: Hot Dog on a Bun with ketchup, 1/4 cup canned pears, raw celery and carrots (1/8 cup each), 1.75 tablespoon ranch dressing, and 1% chocolate-flavored milk.
Now look at its superior replacement: Whole wheat spaghetti with 1/2 cup meat sauce, a whole wheat roll, a half-cup of cooked green beans, a half cup raw broccoli, a half-cup raw cauliflower, a half-cup kiwi halves, 1% milk, an ounce of low-fat ranch dressing, and 5 grams of soft margarine.
Think of how eagerly those elementary school kids will be gobbling up all those cooked green beans, and that raw broccoli, cauliflower and those coveted kiwi halves! The children's delight in two cups of greens, perfectly complimenting their (whole wheat) spaghetti, will surely create little fiber-philes who will happily eschew (and not chew) the candy and baked goods youthful generations before them have craved.
I am impressed that federal nutritionists think schools can deliver kiwi halves, not to mention cauliflower, for a mere 6 cents extra per plate. Peeling the fuzz off kiwis is going to add substantially to preparation costs.
The second news story that convinces me that well-meaning efforts to curb childhood obesity are doomed describes Shani Gofman's experience with "laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding," a surgery that limited the size of her stomach. She weighed in on the day of her operation at 271 pounds, a BMI of 51. Two weeks later, she was down 20 lbs, and after six months reached 237 lbs.
Then she graduated high school and took a summer Israel tour with a group of her peers. She "would wolf down her food and then she would run to the bathroom to vomit or sit in pain waiting for it to make its way through the band." About nine months after surgery, she'd gained back half of what she'd lost. Even enduring the pain and discomfort of surgery does not guarantee that a motivated teen can conquer obesity.
"Most of us have witnessed the medical establishment provide the same advice over and over again to kids who are overweight--they just need to diet and play more outside," said University of Cincinnati pediatrician Thomas Inge. "I wish it were that simple."
And that's the point. It's not as simple as whole grain rolls or even cutting into a young woman's abdomen to shrink her stomach. The wrongly-named "obesity epidemic," a phenomenon that began in 1980 and peaked in 2000, is complex. There's precious little concrete data to explain it, and every effort to turn it around has failed. Why, for example, have obesity rates remained at the same (high) levels for the past ten years? Perhaps instead of throwing more money and regulations at this broadening target, it would be prudent to pull back and see exactly what's going on. Better to deal with the difficulties of obesity--health, emotional, financial, inter-personal--on an individual basis, where compassion and tailored solutions have at least some chance of bringing improvement, if not cure.
Both suggest the same conclusion: Childhood obesity rates won't respond to conventional, ie current (expensive, extensive) efforts to to lower them.
Results of research at Pennsylvania State University about the effects of junk food in schools are especially pertinent this week as the White House, in concert with the USDA, announced its new regulations for the food content of school breakfast and lunch programs. The rationale for this aspect of Michelle Obama's $4.5-billion, 10-year Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is that tweaking the formulation of foods required for school meals will make kids thinner and therefore healthier, as well as model menus they'll emulate later.
 |
| What Michelle Obama ate at Parklawn Elementary when announcing the new school lunch requirements Jan. 25, 2012 |
That's kind of the idea behind replacing sugary, salty snacks sold in school vending machines with healthy alternatives. To see if this made any difference in middle and high-schoolers' girth, sociologists looked at students' longitudinal profiles, following them in and out of "competitive food environments" (ie schools with vending machines selling junk food). They also investigated whether gender, socio-economic status and race/ethnicity played into the vending machine-obesity issue.
Answer: No. Children's BMIs had no relationship to any of those factors. The study's lead researcher, Jennifer Van Hook, said, "Food preferences are established early in life. This problem of childhood obesity cannot be placed solely in the hands of schools."
Ahh, but those are the only hands the Feds can control. So they've now constrained local schools' freedom to decide what's good and feasible for their populations. And what are these enlightened changes? Not much, except now lunches will have more. More fruits and veggies specifically, moving from a half-cup to a cup of veggies per meal, for example, (with types of veggies now specified) and adding to that same tray a half-cup of fruit. Starting this year, half of bread stuffs will be whole-grains, moving to all whole-grain by July 1, 2014. And no more whole milk allowed; low fat only.
The feds know adding all these extra requirements is expensive, so they've agreed to spend six cents per meal of your tax dollars to subsidize the changes. If you look at the USDA's comparison of what those menus look like compared to the old ones, you'll see--there's basically just a lot more food.
Take any menu they offer as an example--say, Tuesday. The old, supposedly obesity-producing lunch offered: Hot Dog on a Bun with ketchup, 1/4 cup canned pears, raw celery and carrots (1/8 cup each), 1.75 tablespoon ranch dressing, and 1% chocolate-flavored milk.
Now look at its superior replacement: Whole wheat spaghetti with 1/2 cup meat sauce, a whole wheat roll, a half-cup of cooked green beans, a half cup raw broccoli, a half-cup raw cauliflower, a half-cup kiwi halves, 1% milk, an ounce of low-fat ranch dressing, and 5 grams of soft margarine.
Think of how eagerly those elementary school kids will be gobbling up all those cooked green beans, and that raw broccoli, cauliflower and those coveted kiwi halves! The children's delight in two cups of greens, perfectly complimenting their (whole wheat) spaghetti, will surely create little fiber-philes who will happily eschew (and not chew) the candy and baked goods youthful generations before them have craved.
I am impressed that federal nutritionists think schools can deliver kiwi halves, not to mention cauliflower, for a mere 6 cents extra per plate. Peeling the fuzz off kiwis is going to add substantially to preparation costs.
 |
| Michelle Obama eats at Parklawn Elementary, Alexandria, VA |
Then she graduated high school and took a summer Israel tour with a group of her peers. She "would wolf down her food and then she would run to the bathroom to vomit or sit in pain waiting for it to make its way through the band." About nine months after surgery, she'd gained back half of what she'd lost. Even enduring the pain and discomfort of surgery does not guarantee that a motivated teen can conquer obesity.
"Most of us have witnessed the medical establishment provide the same advice over and over again to kids who are overweight--they just need to diet and play more outside," said University of Cincinnati pediatrician Thomas Inge. "I wish it were that simple."
And that's the point. It's not as simple as whole grain rolls or even cutting into a young woman's abdomen to shrink her stomach. The wrongly-named "obesity epidemic," a phenomenon that began in 1980 and peaked in 2000, is complex. There's precious little concrete data to explain it, and every effort to turn it around has failed. Why, for example, have obesity rates remained at the same (high) levels for the past ten years? Perhaps instead of throwing more money and regulations at this broadening target, it would be prudent to pull back and see exactly what's going on. Better to deal with the difficulties of obesity--health, emotional, financial, inter-personal--on an individual basis, where compassion and tailored solutions have at least some chance of bringing improvement, if not cure.
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