Obesity Stuff You Want to Know...

Children Now and the FTC and other bigwigs are discussing "Marketing to Kids" this week in Washington, DC. Are we really still discussing this same topic since the Carter administration? It's wrong to bypass parents and market junk food directly to kids...wrong and also pretty skeevy.

If you can't be in DC Tuesday morning, December 15th, watch the FTC's "Sizing Up Food Marketing & Childhood Obesity" event live via webcast here. The super-fabulous Margo Wootan of the CSPI will be on the afternoon panel.

So General Mills is reducing the sugar content of the cereal it markets to kids. It'll go down to 9 grams of sugar per serving. That's more than 2 teaspoons for every 3/4 cup. Just buy high-protein, high-fiber, high-quality cereal that has ZERO sugar. Then let your little one add 1 single teaspoon of sugar. That'll be 4 grams. I don't like the idea of habituating kids to tossing sugar onto cereal, but I think it's better than the best of big brand's "candy for breakfast" offerings... Going with berries is a better option than sugar of course...

I loved Thomas Frieden when he headed up NYC's Department of Health, (now head of the CDC). And I love our new guy, Thomas Farley too. And I've always loved Cathy Nonas... She's busy rockin' out her campaign "Don't Drink Yourself Fat." The newest installment comes today as a gross-out tv spot.

Are we really serving this shit to our kids..?

See the New Food Label from CSPI..?

What do you think of the new suggested Nutrition Label from the Center for Science in the Public Interest..?

I Love it..!

(Full Disclosure: As president of National Action Against Obesity, I volunteer on several CSPI sub-committees, especially in the areas of school food and marketing food to children...)

CSPI can't be lauded enough for their tireless efforts over the past several decades...Michael Jacobson and Margo Wootan are heroes...

How about 1 more tiny change to the Food Label..?

2000 Calories as the suggested daily intake is hundreds more calories per day than most of us require... The average American adult is 5'7"...and, unfortunately, sedentary.

So the daily suggested calories should be something more like 1500 Calories...

Want to eat more? Great! Earn those extra calories with exercise... Every mile run will buy ya 100 more calories.

Either way, with all the wonderful improvements suggested by the CSPI, the Nutrition Label also should reflect a more realistic, healthy, daily calorie intake.

2000 calories works fine if 200 pounds would be an ideal healthy weight for ya--like if you're 6 foot 4.

Read more about the new Food Label in Tara Parker Pope's New York Times article...