DadTalk

McDonald’s to Stop Offering Food-for-Grades Programs

“One parent can make a difference” – a cliché, yes, but in this case a Florida woman’s complaint that her school district was offering McDonald’s Happy Meals for good grades convinced the giant food chain to pull out of similar programs nationwide. I first wrote about the story here.

The quote above came from Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

The only problem? While McDonald’s has seen the light on this issue,  the Seminole County School Board may just find another advertiser to take over the food-for-grades spot.

“We feel there is value in incentives for good grades and good attendance,” says Superintendent Bill Vogel. Which just goes to show us: cultural attitudes can be tougher to change than corporate ones.

How I View Food

I’ve never read Michael Pollan’s books – he’s the guy who wrote “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food” – and yet I already know we view food the same way.

I’ve read many of his New York Times articles, but the real clue is this line: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” posted on his most recent book.

It’s kind of stunning to see my eating lifestyle summed up in seven words. To get an idea of what Pollan is talking about, read this short Q&A with him in The New York Times.

Here he explains how those seven words are more complex than they sound and yet how powerful they are. “It’s simple advice as long as you know what food is, but I spend 14 pages trying to define what food is,” Pollan says. “It’s gotten complicated because of food science and the kind of engineering that’s gone into processing food.”

Even better:

“I think health should be a byproduct of eating well, for reasons that have nothing to do with health, such as cooking meals, eating together and eating real food. You’re going to be healthy, but that’s not the goal. The goal should just be eating well for pleasure, for community, and all the other reasons people eat.”

Yes, yes and yes.

Florida McDonald’s Offer ‘Happy Meals’ for Grades

Hey kiddies! You should study! Why? Because with your great grades, you can win a McDonald’s Happy Meal!

Don’t worry about your health! You don’t need to love learning! You just need to love junk food!

Years into writing this blog and I never cease to be horrified at what school districts and businesses will concoct. In this case, McDonald’s restaurants in Seminole County, Florida, and the local school board are rewarding grade school kids with Happy Meals for good grades or good attendance, reports The New York Times.

The promotions are printed right on the jackets that kids bring home their report cards in. Parents must sign the jackets, which include pictures of Happy Meal menu items, so they’re sure to see the ads.

I shouldn’t even need to write how wrong this all is, so I’ll let Susie Linn, director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, do it for me:

“Turning report cards into ads for McDonald’s undermines parents’ efforts to encourage healthy eating. … It’s a terribly troubling trend. … It really, clearly links doing well in school with getting a Happy Meal.”

But Americans know the truth: the real reason to get a great education is the free food.

Good News, Bad News, Obesity Studies Find

A number of studies are offering mixed messages about obesity. First the good news:

Adult Obesity Growth Rates Stalling

The Centers for Disease Control are reporting that women’s obesity rates have leveled off and remained steady since 1999, reports The New York Times. I’m not sure what that means in terms of all the studies that claim otherwise, but the CDC is the most official source of health data in the United States.

The obesity rate even seems to be stabilizing for men, who may have topped out in 2003. In the glass is half-empty category, researchers are dismayed that the obesity rate has not gone done. More than 72 million – one-third – of Americans adults are overweight.

Click here (pdf) for more details on the study.

Fitness Is Better Gauge of Lifespan

Confirming previous research, seniors who are fit but overweight are more likely to outlive thinner, more sedentary peers, reports U.S. News & Report. This study focuses on adults over 60  years of age.

“Cardio-respiratory fitness is a strong determinate of mortality in older men and women,” researcher Steven N. Blair, a professor at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, tells U.S News. “Older individuals need to be concerned about their fitness level. There is perhaps too much focus on body weight, and fitness is only an afterthought.”

Now the bad news:

L.A. County Discovers Kids Who Are Obese Live in Poor Neighborhoods

Although I’ve wanted to report on recent health and obesity stories, I’ve been buried by the avalanche of recalls. I generally do not like to report on studies unless I have time to read the actual data, something that is quite time consuming.

News accounts of research reports tend to be poorly constructed or researched. That said, I still write about studies that are not obviously flawed or distorted before reporting on them.

Take a recent study on childhood obesity rates in Los Angeles, which reveals a huge disparity between low- and high-income communities.

Children who live in less affluent areas have obesity rates nine times higher than those in wealthier ones, reports the Los Angeles Times.  The obesity rate for children in Manhattan Beach, a coastal town that has easy access to walking, surfing, swimming, biking and volleyball, is only 4 percent.

But in Maywood, which has virtually no green areas, 37 percent of children are deemed obese. Median incomes between the two communities are wildly different:

Schools Becoming More Health Conscious, Major Study Finds

America’s schools have been responding to growing concern about childhood obesity by reducing junk, improving food offerings and requiring increased physical education, reports The New York Times. (I presume the story is referring to the oddly unmentioned School Health Policies and Programs Study, which provides reports on the health of America’s school children every six years.)

The good news is that more schools are offering salads and vegetables, while almost a third have banned vending machine sales, according to the 2006 version of the study.

Sweet Nothings for Our Kids

When soda companies announced a voluntary plan in May 2006 to eliminate sugar-laden drinks from our nation’s high schools over fear that American kids were getting fat and parents angry, it sure sounded good, right?

Well, the original deal, brokered by the Alliance for A Healthier Generation and former President Clinton’s Foundation, had a few loopholes in it, reports The New York Times.

Some were more widely reported:

1. One hundred percent fruit juices could still be sold. I should have thought of this in my early post, but certain natural fruit juices – apple and grape come to mind – have loads of sugar in them. That’s because processing the fruit strips away the healthy stuff and leaves mostly sugar water.
2. Sports drinks and diet drinks could still be sold in high schools.

I should have seen it before, but all these drinks provide an entryway to sodas and other yet-to-be-invented drinks.

You would think that would be enough for soda companies, but apparently the deal was changed in April to also allow for enhanced water products such as Vitaminwater and Propel. These drinks don’t fit the technical definition of sports drinks, but have similar levels of sugar: under 66 calories per serving.

McDonald’s Wrappers Makes Food Taste Better; Obesity Marches on

Carrots wrapped in McDonald’s packaging tasted better to the children surveyed than did carrots in a plain wrapper. (No such ads exist because McDonald’s doesn’t sell carrots).
– Los Angeles Times on new study

Think about that for a minute. Researchers package carrots and hamburgers in plain white wrappers and an identical item in McDonald’s wrappers. Children as young as 3 say the McDonald’s-wrapped food tastes better.

The more TVs in a child’s home, the more likely McDonald’s-wrapped food wins the taste test, according to a study from researchers at Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. The same holds true for fries, chicken nuggets and milk.

Interestingly, my kids who have probably never seen a McDonald’s TV ad, don’t like the food. In fact, the only thing they like about McDonald’s are the toys.

The study reinforces the idea that kids, who ranged from 3 to 5 years old in this study, consider commercials as authoritative as CNN. (What that says about adults is another matter.) Psychologists say that even 8-year-olds have trouble recognizing an ad’s persuasive influence.

Well, that may explain why the fight against obesity is failing, reports The Associated Press via USA Today. Not a single state saw a drop in the obesity rate, while it climbed in 31.

From the article:

Health officials say the latest state rankings provide evidence that the nation has a public health crisis on its hands.

Unfortunately, we’re treating it like a mere inconvenience instead of the emergency that it is,” said Dr. James Marks, senior vice president at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy devoted to improving health care.

Which states are faring the worst?

1. Mississippi
2. Alabama
3. West Virginia
4. Louisiana
5. Kentucky
6. Tennessee
7. Arkansas
8. Indiana, South Carolina (tie)
9. Texas

Colorado continues to be the fittest state.

Notice a trend here? The losers are poor Southern states.

While it may seem counterintuitive, junk food is less expensive than fruits and vegetables. And poor neighborhoods are less likely to have grocery stores stocking fruits and vegetables on their shelves. Fast food chains are often a primary source of food.

Which brings us back to the McDonald’s story. One suggestion to fight the obesity problem is to have fast-food chains advertise healthier fare.

“The only way you’re gonna get a big successful commercial campaign is from a big company. What if Ronald McDonald introduced kids to broccoli. . . . “Joanne Cantor, director of the Center for Communication Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells the Times.

Here’s my suggestion short of taking TV sets away from children’s homes: Create a national advertising campaign, complete with cool characters that kids will identify with. Then adorn apples, oranges, bananas and asparagus – preferably organic – with stickers that illustrate our new mascots. If executed well, suddenly broccoli will taste better.

Yeah, I know chances for success here are slim to none, but hey, a concerned dad can dream.

A Clue as to Why Some Gain Weight

I rarely get excited over obesity research because the focus is always on pharmaceutical solutions rather than eating healthy and exercising. But some stories transcend those worries if for no other reason than they explain why some of us battle weight gain.

Scientists may have discovered how stress causes weight gain for some people, reports the Los Angeles Times. A neuropeptide called NPY stimulates appetite and increases the size and number of fat cells in certain parts of the body. It seems the chemical is preparing the body for a possible fight or flight situation because it is produced during times of stress.

This wouldn’t be such a problem if junk food wasn’t so readily available. In fact, NPY combined with stress and a normal diet resulted in thinner mice, reports the Times.

But stress combined with a modern diet quickly resulted in obese mice. On the flipside, inserting a slow-release NPY inhibitor near a fat deposit caused the weight to melt off.

Genetic research indicates the same will be true for humans. This of course opens up the door to a medical solution, though researchers are still about two years away from testing a pharmaceutical solution on humans.

For those like me who are less inclined to take medicine, it seems reducing stress combined with healthy eating is just as valuable as getting injections, which are bound to have side-effects.

Foundation to Spend $500 Million to Fight Childhood Obesity

Fearful that America’s children will live sicker and die younger than their parents, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation plans to spend half a billion dollars fighting the obesity epidemic, reports The New York Times.

With nearly one third – 25 million – of children under 17 considered overweight or obese in 2006 according to the U.S. Census, the foundation felt that something had to be done.

“This is an epidemic that is going to cost the country in terms of morbidity and mortality and economically,” Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the foundation’s president and chief executive, told the Times.

Most of the money will be spent on research, prodding the government to take more action, and improving access to healthy food and safe play areas.