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Friday, March 29 2024 @ 02:03 AM CDT

White House declares new war on fat kids, wonder who the fat czar will be?

Health

White House: Stop Marketing Unhealthy Foods to Kids

by Peter Maer

A White House report warns "The childhood obesity epidemic in America is a national health crisis."

U.S. Military: Obesity is a matter of national security
By Bob Considine


The review by the Task Force on Childhood Obesity says one out of every three children is overweight or obese. The task force is a key part of First Lady Michelle Obama's campaign to solve the problem of obesity within a generation.


The report includes familiar themes, emphasizing the importance of improved nutrition and physical activity. It also calls for some new and dramatic efforts to curtail marketing of unhealthy foods.


"We have a roadmap for implementing our plan across our government and across the country," Michelle Obama told reporters today.


But administration officials repeatedly emphasized the effort would rely on "bully pulpit" pressure and not any new federal mandates to push the changes.


Setting the tone for that pressure, the first lady said, "No one gets off the hook on this one from governments to schools, corporations to non-profits all the way down to families sitting around their dinner table."


She said she would "focus my energy" to keep the issue at "the forefront of the discussion in society."


The task force wants junk food makers and marketers to go on what amounts to an advertising diet. It says media characters that are often popular with kids should only be used to promote healthy products. If voluntary efforts fail to limit marketing of less healthy products to young viewers, the task force suggests the FCC should consider new rules on commercials in children's programming. It also challenges food retailers to stop using in-store displays to sell unhealthy food items to children.

But Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz said, "A regulatory approach is certainly not where we want to start." He told a briefing, "You start by pushing self-regulation, by pushing your bully pulpit; sometimes shaming companies that don't do enough."


Leibowitz indicated the FTC would issue new subpoenas to major food marketing and fast food companies that were questioned in 2005 about their marketing approaches. The FTC chief said the agency would determine whether the firms have honored commitments and "whether we can make them do more."


Leibowitz sees some marketing of healthier foods but he concedes "more needs to be done."


The advisory panel proposes better food content labeling on products and vending machines. Restaurants and vending machine companies are urged to display calorie counts. The experts say the FDA and USDA should cooperate with the food and beverage industries to develop a standard system of nutrition labeling on the front of packages. The study also suggests that restaurants should re-evaluate portion sizes, improve kids' menus and list more healthy food choices.

The task force also sees a potential pocketbook approach to keep people from buying unhealthy foods. It calls for analyzing the effect of imposing state and local sales taxes on less healthy products.


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius emphasized, "There is no proposal for a federal tax on sugar."


She noted some local governments have seen a possible correlation between a lower use of sugary items and increased taxes on certain products.


The White House study says school systems should consider promoting healthier food in cafeterias. One idea: "swap deep fryers for salad bars."


Children will likely cheer the panel's call for schools to promote recess for younger students and "physical activity breaks" for upper level grades.


The report found one out of every three children is overweight or obese, conditions that increase their risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and cancer in their lifetimes. The cost of treating obesity-related ailments is estimated to be $150 billion per year.


The task force concludes that strategies listed in the report "should" achieve the goal of solving the childhood obesity problem within a generation. It concedes it won't be easy.

http://www.cbsnews.com


http://hiddenmysteries.com/xcart/product.php?productid=19882

From infancy through teen years, health problems are rampant. 17% of children and adolescents between ages 2 and 19 years are overweight. Childhood obesity and diabetes are on the rise, and children are saddled with with acid reflux, skin and respiratory disorders, high cholesterol, as well as mild and severe depression. Kids are more aggressive and violent now than ever. They don't feel good.

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U.S. Military: Obesity is a matter of national security

By Bob Considine

Today Vasti Cedeno will leave for Fort Jackson, S.C., to start nine weeks of Army boot camp.

When two of her mentors were killed while serving in Afghanistan, she decided her "life’s mission" was to join the Army. But even with her mind made up, her body kept her down. Cedeno weighed nearly 275 pounds.

"I was too ashamed to go into the recruiter’s office," she said.

Cedeno turned it around. Through diet and exercise, the Emerson resident dropped 112 pounds in a year, and she figures to lose more if Fort Jackson combat training stays true to reputation.
Military officials hope Cedeno, 27, represents the start of a trend. The scales are not tipping in the right direction for young people, and a new report says the sharp rise in obesity rates has become a matter of national security.

Over 9 million young adults — 27 percent of all Americans ages 17-24 — weigh too much to join the military, according to the report released last week by Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit group of 130 retired admirals, generals and senior military leaders that promotes health and education for American children. Their findings come on top of a Pentagon report released last year that said 48,000 military recruits had flunked weight standards since 2005.

"We also lose upwards to 12,000 young men and young women a year before they even finish up the first term of enlistment," said retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Norman Seip. "That’s another person who has been recruited, trained and left because they’re not able to maintain standards."

Several military recruiters in New Jersey acknowledge the issue presents a challenge, although they may not agree with Mission: Readiness on the urgency of the situation.

Army Capt. Eric P. Fekete estimated 30-40 percent of applicants in the Newark area are "out of tolerance of the established enlistment standards," but said not all of those standards are related to weight. Sgt. Joel Thornton of the Army recruiting office in Hackensack estimated 10-15 percent of people interviewed need to lower their weight to meet military standards. Sgt. Morrease Leftwich of the Army recruiting office in East Orange also said he has seen some would-be recruits who were too heavy to make the grade.

All of those recruiters said they work with young men and women to get them to a recruitable weight.

"The people we go out of our way to help are the ones that start helping themselves," Thornton said.

What’s at stake

The true impact of obesity trends in U.S. youths on the military remains to be seen, but one military official says the consequences could be dire.

"Our national security in the year 2030 is absolutely dependent on reversing the alarming rates of child obesity," said retired Rear Adm. James A. Barnett at the news conference held by Mission: Readiness last week.

As noted by military leaders of Mission: Readiness, all the armed services are meeting their recruitment goals — due in part to the struggling economy. The Army also has benefited from the lowering of aptitude standards in 2006.

But the military has been stretched thin. More than 300,000 members of the military have served three times or more in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States currently has a military command in 20 countries.

The Center for Naval Analyses released a federally funded study last week saying the Navy cannot sustain its current level of global operation.

Change is also in the air. The Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force have ended "stop loss," a policy that permitted involuntary extension of an active-duty contract. The Army is to phase out the policy by next March. An economic recovery would also presumably lower recruit numbers.

"I do not take our recent (recruitment) success for granted, nor do I assume the current environment will continue," Clifford L. Stanley, U.S. Defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told Congress last month.

Lt. Col. John Sheard, recruiting and retention commander for the New Jersey Army National Guard, says that for recruits who aren’t in qualifying shape, there is a Recruit Sustainment Program that has a success rate of 94 percent.

"We bring you down to our headquarters in Sea Girt and for one week a month, up to 120 days, train you to meet the requirements for your height and weight," Sheard said.

Sheard said the New Jersey Army Guard is currently ahead of its required number for soldiers and new recruits; 89 percent of non-prior-service enlistees get shipped to basic training.

Other New Jersey recruiters ask young adults not to be dissuaded by their weight. They’ll work with the recruits, they say.

"It would be more disappointing if the person is not willing to make the changes," Leftwich said. "We look at it as an opportunity to help someone. That’s what we do as leaders."

"For some," Thornton added, "it can be a matter of losing 10 pounds by just cutting soda out of your diet. We advise about diets and proper weight loss, We do physical training. It kind of depends on them wanting to change their lifestyle."

Eye on school food

The first line of attack, according to Mission: Readiness, is child nutrition in schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that in 39 states, at least 40 percent of the young adults (ages 18-24) are overweight. New Jersey, at 45.1 percent, is one of them.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, a member of the commission, says 80 percent of children who were overweight between the ages of 10-15 were obese by age 25.

Further studies show 40 percent of a child’s daily calorie intake occurs at school.

But Emma Davis-Kovacs, director of the New Jersey Department of Agriculture’s Division of Food and Nutrition, said state schools have made improvements with the adoption of the New Jersey School Nutrition/Wellness policy, enacted in September 2007.

The policy restricts secondary schools during the school day from selling candy or food items that list sugar as a first ingredient. All snack and beverage items sold in lunch rooms, school stores or vending machines can have no more than 8 grams of total fat (excluding nuts) and 2 grams of saturated fat per serving. No beverage for sale can exceed 12 ounces, excluding water and milk containing 2 percent or less of fat. According to a CDC report last year, 75.3 percent of New Jersey schools sold no candy or salty snacks in machines or stores — compared with 35 percent in 2002. "There is obviously positive impact with that, and we’re excited about it," Davis-Kovacs said. "I think there’s a growing awareness of what we need to do."

Yet, as Army recruit Roy Jones Jr. says, "Kids in school, they just eat."

The East Orange resident, 18, described himself as "a sloppy 242 pounds" when he decided to become the fourth generation of his family to join the military. He’s down about 36 pounds, more toned and able to run greater distances, thanks to help from Sgt. Leftwich and his recruitment team.

"It was kind of hard in the beginning, especially running longer distances," Jones said. "But if you fight hard enough, you can get in shape."

He’ll leave May 19 for boot camp at Fort Jackson. Ironically, he’d like to be an Army cook.

"Now I’m much more disciplined," he said. "I try not to eat fried food, and I cut out all red meat so I could lose the weight."

Working it out

Cedeno was in Uganda in 2007, working toward her international-studies degree from City College of New York, when a battalion of U.S. Army soldiers rolled in for a humanitarian mission. Two soldiers she formed a bond with were killed in Afghanistan over the next two years.

The deaths of Maj. Scott A. Hagerty of Stillwater, Okla., and Capt. Benjamin Sklaver of Hampden, Conn., had a life-changing effect on her.

"Something inside me snapped," she said. "I wanted to do something to reduce the casualties with these soldiers. I’d always had a fascination with intelligence. So I thought if I can live my life just providing any kind of intel that can reduce casualties among these soldiers, that’s what I’m going to do."

But she was also painfully aware she would need to make major changes to her 5-foot-5 frame. Just last June, she was in Kosovo, doing research for her master’s degree, and she struggled to get home atop a steep hill every day.

"I couldn’t get up there without stopping three times," she said. "I would find any excuse I could to get a taxi ride up this ridiculous hill."

Too embarrassed to be seen in a recruiter’s office in Hackensack, she phoned to tell Thornton of her interest in joining the Army.

With a commitment to "no shortcuts," Cedeno started taking off the weight with a strict diet and regular workouts, and she promised to show her face in January. Thornton talked her into coming in November and provided additional support to meet the goals.

"There have been few people who have come through here and truly, truly impressed me," Thornton said. "She’s one of them."

Cedeno now offers advice to young people who have thoughts of joining the military but feel they’re too heavy.

"If your heart and soul and mind are not into it, you’re not going to lose the weight you need to, or you won’t keep it off," she said. "You have to do it for yourself and do it for your country."

http://www.nj.com


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