USDA and HHS Announce New Dietary Guidelines to Help Americans Make Healthier Food Choices and Confront Obesity Epidemic
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2011
Agriculture Secretary TomVilsack and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius today announced the release of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the federal government's evidence-based nutritional guidance to promote health, reduce the risk of chronic diseases, and reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity through improved nutrition and physical activity.
Because more than one-third of children and more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese, the 7th edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans places stronger emphasis on reducing calorie consumption and increasing physical activity.
“The 2010 Dietary Guidelines are being released at a time when the majority of adults and one in three children is overweight or obese and this is a crisis that we can no longer ignore,” said Secretary Vilsack. “These new and improved dietary recommendations give individuals the information to make thoughtful choices of healthier foods in the right portions and to complement those choices with physical activity. The bottom line is that most Americans need to trim our waistlines to reduce the risk of developing diet-related chronic disease. Improving our eating habits is not only good for every individual and family, but also for our country.”
The new 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans focus on balancing calories with physical activity, and encourage Americans to consume more healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, and seafood, and to consume less sodium, saturated and trans fats, added sugars, and refined grains.
“Helping Americans incorporate these guidelines into their everyday lives is important to improving the overall health of the American people,” said HHS Secretary Sebelius. “The new Dietary Guidelines provide concrete action steps to help people live healthier, more physically active and longer lives.”
The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans include 23 Key Recommendations for the general population and six additional Key Recommendations for specific population groups, such as women who are pregnant. Key Recommendations are the most important messages within the Guidelines in terms of their implications for improving public health.
The recommendations are intended as an integrated set of advice to achieve an overall healthy eating pattern. To get the full benefit, all Americans should carry out the Dietary Guidelines recommendations in their entirety.
More consumer-friendly advice and tools, including a next generation Food Pyramid, will be released by USDA and HHS in the coming months. Below is a preview of some of the tips that will be provided to help consumers translate the Dietary Guidelines into their everyday lives:
• Enjoy your food, but eat less.
• Avoid oversized portions.
• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
• Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals – and choose the foods with lower numbers.
• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.
This edition of the Dietary Guidelines comes at a critical juncture for America’s health and prosperity. By adopting the recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines, Americans can live healthier lives and contribute to a lowering of health-care costs, helping to strengthen America’s long-term economic competitiveness and overall productivity.
USDA and HHS have conducted this latest review of the scientific literature, and have developed and issued the 7th edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in a joint effort that is mandated by Congress. The Guidelines form the basis of nutrition education programs, Federal nutrition assistance programs such as school meals programs and Meals on Wheels programs for seniors, and dietary advice provided by health professionals.
The Dietary Guidelines, based on the most sound scientific information, provide authoritative advice for people 2 years and older about how proper dietary habits can promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases.
The Dietary Guidelines aid policymakers in designing and implementing nutrition-related programs. They also provide education and health professionals, such as nutritionists, dietitians, and health educators with a compilation of the latest science-based recommendations. A table with key consumer behaviors and potential strategies for professionals to use in implementing the Dietary Guidelines is included in the appendix.
The 2010 Dietary Guidelines is available at www.dietaryguidelines.gov.
For more information on dietary guidelines, see www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines and www.healthfinder.gov/prevention
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington,
Monday, January 31, 2011
For US soldiers, a healthy food revolution
by Mathieu Rabechault Mathieu Rabechault – Sun Jan 30, 7:03 pm ET
FORT BENNING, Georgia (AFP) – Pizzas, sodas and doughnuts are off the menu at some US Army bases as new recruits are being weaned off fast food for healthier fare, which the military believes will make them better soldiers.
The military's culinary revolution is on display at a mess hall at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the young troops, with their assault rifles slung over their shoulders, file past a breakfast buffet in silence.
To help them choose a balanced meal, green, yellow and red labels indicate the nutritional value of each dish.
Grapes, apples and melon slices get a healthy green label. Old staples such as scrambled eggs are still served, but with a yellow label, Bacon also qualifies as yellow, though it's turkey instead of pork.Cheese receives a red color code, while pastries and cakes are nowhere to be found.
The soldiers, most of them under the age of 21, seem to be embracing the healthier dishes. After an hour of exercise outdoors before dawn, their plates are piled high with fruit, yogurt and granola.
Before they joined the military, the soldiers had fast food about four to seven times a week, said Lieutenant General Mark Hertling of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. "That's a lot of fat," Hertling said.
After seeing the physical condition of incoming recruits steadily decline over the past decade, the army launched the effort to introduce a healthier diet to new soldiers."In the mid-90s, most US primary and secondary schools eliminated mandatory fitness education at school. At about the same time, the technology explosion occurred with gaming, people playing with their hands instead of going out running and jumping," Hertling said.
The result: obesity among 17- to 24-year-olds has increased from 14 to 23 percent in the past 10 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the junk food diet has helped narrow the pool of potential military recruits.About 75 percent of possible recruits are not able to serve in uniform because of a lack of education, arrest records or mental problems, while about 25 percent are ruled out because they are physically unfit, the general said.
Even among those who are accepted, one in five recruits still need to shed pounds to meet the army's standards, said Command Sergeant Major Robert Boudnik, who oversees the mess hall.
The new regime seems to work, he said. "I've seen soldiers losing 70 pounds through basic training," said Boudnik, still sweating from morning exercises.
For lunch and dinner, French fries, pizzas and hot dogs have been scrapped. Sugary sodas are banished as well, but the soldiers don't seem too bothered as they guzzle down brightly colored energy drinks instead.
The new approach to the mess hall, which at the moment only applies to bases that conduct basic training, has grabbed the attention and praise of First Lady Michelle Obama, who has tried to promote healthier habits amid an epidemic of obesity.
She paid a visit Thursday to Fort Jackson in South Carolina, where General Hertling briefed her on the army's new approach to food and fitness.The first lady came away impressed, saying the initiative could serve as a model for civilian society.Hertling said the program was not out to force soldiers to eat healthy foods.
"You can't control lifestyle, you just try to influence it," he said.After eating with his 200 comrades, 20-year-old Reid Reifschlager, from Houston, Texas, said he liked his new diet.
"It's true, we don't eat a lot of junk food, but the food is good," he said. "Since I'm here I feel more energized."
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FORT BENNING, Georgia (AFP) – Pizzas, sodas and doughnuts are off the menu at some US Army bases as new recruits are being weaned off fast food for healthier fare, which the military believes will make them better soldiers.
The military's culinary revolution is on display at a mess hall at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the young troops, with their assault rifles slung over their shoulders, file past a breakfast buffet in silence.
To help them choose a balanced meal, green, yellow and red labels indicate the nutritional value of each dish.
Grapes, apples and melon slices get a healthy green label. Old staples such as scrambled eggs are still served, but with a yellow label, Bacon also qualifies as yellow, though it's turkey instead of pork.Cheese receives a red color code, while pastries and cakes are nowhere to be found.
The soldiers, most of them under the age of 21, seem to be embracing the healthier dishes. After an hour of exercise outdoors before dawn, their plates are piled high with fruit, yogurt and granola.
Before they joined the military, the soldiers had fast food about four to seven times a week, said Lieutenant General Mark Hertling of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. "That's a lot of fat," Hertling said.
After seeing the physical condition of incoming recruits steadily decline over the past decade, the army launched the effort to introduce a healthier diet to new soldiers."In the mid-90s, most US primary and secondary schools eliminated mandatory fitness education at school. At about the same time, the technology explosion occurred with gaming, people playing with their hands instead of going out running and jumping," Hertling said.
The result: obesity among 17- to 24-year-olds has increased from 14 to 23 percent in the past 10 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the junk food diet has helped narrow the pool of potential military recruits.About 75 percent of possible recruits are not able to serve in uniform because of a lack of education, arrest records or mental problems, while about 25 percent are ruled out because they are physically unfit, the general said.
Even among those who are accepted, one in five recruits still need to shed pounds to meet the army's standards, said Command Sergeant Major Robert Boudnik, who oversees the mess hall.
The new regime seems to work, he said. "I've seen soldiers losing 70 pounds through basic training," said Boudnik, still sweating from morning exercises.
For lunch and dinner, French fries, pizzas and hot dogs have been scrapped. Sugary sodas are banished as well, but the soldiers don't seem too bothered as they guzzle down brightly colored energy drinks instead.
The new approach to the mess hall, which at the moment only applies to bases that conduct basic training, has grabbed the attention and praise of First Lady Michelle Obama, who has tried to promote healthier habits amid an epidemic of obesity.
She paid a visit Thursday to Fort Jackson in South Carolina, where General Hertling briefed her on the army's new approach to food and fitness.The first lady came away impressed, saying the initiative could serve as a model for civilian society.Hertling said the program was not out to force soldiers to eat healthy foods.
"You can't control lifestyle, you just try to influence it," he said.After eating with his 200 comrades, 20-year-old Reid Reifschlager, from Houston, Texas, said he liked his new diet.
"It's true, we don't eat a lot of junk food, but the food is good," he said. "Since I'm here I feel more energized."
Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Introducing PreventObesity.net
PreventObesity.net is a groundbreaking new tool sponsored by RWJF to help build the movement to reverse childhood obesity and connect leaders in the movement with one another.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Traceability rule represents big adjustment for food industry
By Lyndsey Layton Washington Post Monday, January 24, 2011,12:09am
In response to a new federal food safety law and growing consumer interest, vast amounts of new data are being generated about the complicated path that food takes from field to supermarket shelf. And, increasingly, some of that information is being offered to curious shoppers, who in some stores can wave a smartphone above an apple or orange and learn instantly where it was grown, who grew it and whether it has been recalled. They can even contact the farmer, if they feel moved.
A provision of the federal food safety law passed last year requires that all players in the country's food supply chain be able to quickly trace from whom they received a food product and to whom they sent it. They'll have to maintain that information in digital form, creating deep wells of information that, in some cases, consumers could tap into through their computers or cellphones.
The "one step forward, one step back" traceability requirement - for processed food and produce - is designed to make it easier for the Food and Drug Administration to identify the source of an outbreak of foodborne illness, trace its path and swiftly remove it from the food supply.
The new requirement represents a major adjustment for some parts of the nation's food system, as the government imposes standards and electronic record-keeping on an industry where small players still rely on handshakes and paper invoices.
The FDA has had trouble quickly pinpointing the source of national outbreaks of food-borne illness, a task complicated by a lengthy food supply chain where tomatoes might change hands five times from farm to store. Many in the food business already are using traceability technology, mostly relying on bar codes that can be affixed after harvesting to a piece of fruit or a crate.
But the new law has triggered a small gold rush for technology companies angling for a piece of an emerging market, which covers food other than meat, poultry and egg products. They are competing to develop the tracking technology and manage the data.Some are experimenting with radio frequency identification and other sophisticated methods, including etching identification codes on produce with lasers or micro-percussion markers that make tiny indents."They each believe they have the holy grail product tracking solutions sitting in their laptop," said David Acheson, former assistant commissioner for food protection at the FDA. "Somebody is probably going to make a bundle of money out of this."
Under the new law, the FDA must launch pilot projects by September, then report results to Congress and issue more specific rules by 2013. Exactly what systems will ultimately look like, how they will work and how much they will cost is unclear.Paul Chang, who leads the traceability initiative at IBM, said the company is basically taking the tracking system it uses for the pharmaceutical industry and adopting it to the food business.He said traceability helps not only with safety but also allows companies to hold their partners along the chain accountable for moving food quickly and avoiding spoilage."It's about allowing people to make more intelligent decisions by providing accurate, instrumented data," he said.Segments of the food industry have been required since 2005 to be able to trace "one step forward, one step back," but not farms or restaurants.But according to a 2009 investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services's inspector general, most food facilities surveyed did not meet those requirements and 25 percent didn't even know about the law.
The need for better traceability became clear after a national outbreak of salmonella illness in spring 2008 that sickened more than 1,300 people across the country.
Initially, investigators at the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified tomatoes as the culprit, and warned the public against consuming them. But more than a month later, FDA investigators correctly identified the source of the outbreak as peppers from Mexico. The delay was partly because of the chaotic record-keeping of the growers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers, Acheson said.
In the meantime, the cost to tomato growers in Florida alone was estimated at about $100 million.While the traceability system will improve the tools available to the FDA, Acheson cautioned that tracking an outbreak will still take time."It still involves the FDA going to the local Safeway, finding out who they received it from and they've got to go to those three suppliers and do the same thing," he said. "They'll be more efficient, but it won't achieve the desired speed to shut it down."In some cases, companies are going beyond the federal requirement and making a portion of the traceability information available to consumers, who are increasingly interested in the way food is produced.HarvestMark, based in California, has developed a two-dimensional bar code sticker that can be placed on individual fruits and vegetables or packaging. Shoppers can scan the sticker with a smartphone or go to the HarvestMark website and enter the number from the sticker to learn the path the food has taken and other information the farmer chooses to share, such as the harvest date.
"There's been a very rapid sea change in consumer behavior," said Elliott Grant, the chief marketing officer for HarvestMark. "With very high-profile food recalls, cellphones and iPhones, people have been trained that they can access information very quickly. They want to know, 'Where does this come from and is it safe? How far has it traveled? What are the growing practices?' "
HarvestMark is being used by more than 200 companies, including the national chain Kroger's, which is applying it to all of its private label fruits and vegetables in its more than 2,400 stores.Not only does the technology provide information about the food, but it also allows the consumer to send a comment to the farmer, Grant said. "You can click a button and tell the farmer 'These are the greatest strawberries I've ever had' or whatever. . . . It's about using technology to put people back in touch with the people who grow their food."That's new for Phillip Bauman, a 42-year-old watermelon farmer in Washington state. Bauman bought the HarvestMark system for his Pasco farm about three years ago because Costco required a tracking system.But Bauman, who is a member of the Old German Baptist Brethren, does not own a television, use e-mail or have Internet service. HarvestMark provides him with a laptop computer and pre-printed bar code stickers for his melons. And during harvesting, he takes the laptop to a bank or some other place with Internet service to upload the data to HarvestMark.One day, he was surprised to get a letter from an unhappy customer who had tracked down his address from the HarvestMark sticker. Using the code, Bauman traced the melon and discovered it had been picked in August but purchased by the customer in October."We called him back and said we're really sorry ," Bauman said. "Then I complained to the chain and said my name is on this product that's out there for two months. This system gives the end user - the customer - the option to be more aware of their products and where it comes from. And I think there will be a higher level of accountability, on our end of it, too."
In response to a new federal food safety law and growing consumer interest, vast amounts of new data are being generated about the complicated path that food takes from field to supermarket shelf. And, increasingly, some of that information is being offered to curious shoppers, who in some stores can wave a smartphone above an apple or orange and learn instantly where it was grown, who grew it and whether it has been recalled. They can even contact the farmer, if they feel moved.
A provision of the federal food safety law passed last year requires that all players in the country's food supply chain be able to quickly trace from whom they received a food product and to whom they sent it. They'll have to maintain that information in digital form, creating deep wells of information that, in some cases, consumers could tap into through their computers or cellphones.
The "one step forward, one step back" traceability requirement - for processed food and produce - is designed to make it easier for the Food and Drug Administration to identify the source of an outbreak of foodborne illness, trace its path and swiftly remove it from the food supply.
The new requirement represents a major adjustment for some parts of the nation's food system, as the government imposes standards and electronic record-keeping on an industry where small players still rely on handshakes and paper invoices.
The FDA has had trouble quickly pinpointing the source of national outbreaks of food-borne illness, a task complicated by a lengthy food supply chain where tomatoes might change hands five times from farm to store. Many in the food business already are using traceability technology, mostly relying on bar codes that can be affixed after harvesting to a piece of fruit or a crate.
But the new law has triggered a small gold rush for technology companies angling for a piece of an emerging market, which covers food other than meat, poultry and egg products. They are competing to develop the tracking technology and manage the data.Some are experimenting with radio frequency identification and other sophisticated methods, including etching identification codes on produce with lasers or micro-percussion markers that make tiny indents."They each believe they have the holy grail product tracking solutions sitting in their laptop," said David Acheson, former assistant commissioner for food protection at the FDA. "Somebody is probably going to make a bundle of money out of this."
Under the new law, the FDA must launch pilot projects by September, then report results to Congress and issue more specific rules by 2013. Exactly what systems will ultimately look like, how they will work and how much they will cost is unclear.Paul Chang, who leads the traceability initiative at IBM, said the company is basically taking the tracking system it uses for the pharmaceutical industry and adopting it to the food business.He said traceability helps not only with safety but also allows companies to hold their partners along the chain accountable for moving food quickly and avoiding spoilage."It's about allowing people to make more intelligent decisions by providing accurate, instrumented data," he said.Segments of the food industry have been required since 2005 to be able to trace "one step forward, one step back," but not farms or restaurants.But according to a 2009 investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services's inspector general, most food facilities surveyed did not meet those requirements and 25 percent didn't even know about the law.
The need for better traceability became clear after a national outbreak of salmonella illness in spring 2008 that sickened more than 1,300 people across the country.
Initially, investigators at the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified tomatoes as the culprit, and warned the public against consuming them. But more than a month later, FDA investigators correctly identified the source of the outbreak as peppers from Mexico. The delay was partly because of the chaotic record-keeping of the growers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers, Acheson said.
In the meantime, the cost to tomato growers in Florida alone was estimated at about $100 million.While the traceability system will improve the tools available to the FDA, Acheson cautioned that tracking an outbreak will still take time."It still involves the FDA going to the local Safeway, finding out who they received it from and they've got to go to those three suppliers and do the same thing," he said. "They'll be more efficient, but it won't achieve the desired speed to shut it down."In some cases, companies are going beyond the federal requirement and making a portion of the traceability information available to consumers, who are increasingly interested in the way food is produced.HarvestMark, based in California, has developed a two-dimensional bar code sticker that can be placed on individual fruits and vegetables or packaging. Shoppers can scan the sticker with a smartphone or go to the HarvestMark website and enter the number from the sticker to learn the path the food has taken and other information the farmer chooses to share, such as the harvest date.
"There's been a very rapid sea change in consumer behavior," said Elliott Grant, the chief marketing officer for HarvestMark. "With very high-profile food recalls, cellphones and iPhones, people have been trained that they can access information very quickly. They want to know, 'Where does this come from and is it safe? How far has it traveled? What are the growing practices?' "
HarvestMark is being used by more than 200 companies, including the national chain Kroger's, which is applying it to all of its private label fruits and vegetables in its more than 2,400 stores.Not only does the technology provide information about the food, but it also allows the consumer to send a comment to the farmer, Grant said. "You can click a button and tell the farmer 'These are the greatest strawberries I've ever had' or whatever. . . . It's about using technology to put people back in touch with the people who grow their food."That's new for Phillip Bauman, a 42-year-old watermelon farmer in Washington state. Bauman bought the HarvestMark system for his Pasco farm about three years ago because Costco required a tracking system.But Bauman, who is a member of the Old German Baptist Brethren, does not own a television, use e-mail or have Internet service. HarvestMark provides him with a laptop computer and pre-printed bar code stickers for his melons. And during harvesting, he takes the laptop to a bank or some other place with Internet service to upload the data to HarvestMark.One day, he was surprised to get a letter from an unhappy customer who had tracked down his address from the HarvestMark sticker. Using the code, Bauman traced the melon and discovered it had been picked in August but purchased by the customer in October."We called him back and said we're really sorry ," Bauman said. "Then I complained to the chain and said my name is on this product that's out there for two months. This system gives the end user - the customer - the option to be more aware of their products and where it comes from. And I think there will be a higher level of accountability, on our end of it, too."
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wal-Mart Plans to Make Its House Brand Healthier - NYTimes.com
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, NY TIMES , 1/20/11
Wal-Mart Shifts Strategy to Promote Healthy Foods
WASHINGTON — Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, will announce a five-year plan on Thursday to make thousands of its packaged foods lower in unhealthy salts, fats and sugars, and to drop prices on fruits and vegetables.
The initiative came out of discussions the company has been having with Michelle Obama, the first lady, who will attend the announcement in Washington and has made healthy eating and reducing childhood obesity the centerpiece of her agenda. Aides say it is the first time Mrs. Obama has thrown her support behind the work of a single company.
The plan, similar to efforts by other companies and to public health initiatives by New York City, sets specific targets for lowering sodium, trans fats and added sugars in a broad array of foods — including rice, soups, canned beans, salad dressings and snacks like potato chips — packaged under the company’s house brand, Great Value.
In interviews previewing the announcement, Wal-Mart and White House officials said the company was also pledging to press its major food suppliers, like Kraft, to follow its example. Wal-Mart does not disclose how much of its sales come from its house brand. But Kraft says about 16 percent of its global sales are through Wal-Mart.
In addition, Wal-Mart will work to eliminate any extra cost to customers for healthy foods made with whole grains, said Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for corporate affairs. By lowering prices on fresh fruits and vegetables, Wal-Mart says it will cut into its own profits but hopes to make up for it in sales volume. “This is not about asking the farmers to accept less for their crops,” he said.
The changes will be introduced slowly, over a period of five years, to give the company time to overcome technical hurdles and to give consumers time to adjust to foods’ new taste, Mr. Dach said. “It doesn’t do you any good to have healthy food if people don’t eat it.”
Wal-Mart is hardly the first company to take such steps; ConAgra Foods, for example, has promised to reduce sodium content in its foods by 20 percent by 2015.
But because Wal-Mart sells more groceries than any other company in the country, and because it is such a large purchaser of foods produced by national suppliers,nutrition experts say the changes could have a big impact on the affordability of healthy food and the health of American families and children.
Some say the company has almost as much power as federal regulators to shape the marketplace.
“A number of companies have said they are going to make voluntary reductions in sodium over the next several years, and numerous companies have said they are going to try to get trans fat out of their food,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of Center for Science in the Public Interest. “But Wal-Mart is in a position almost like theFood and Drug Administration. I think it really pushes the food industry in the right direction.”
But Wal-Mart is pushing only so far. The company’s proposed sugar reductions are “much less aggressive” than they could be, Mr. Jacobson said, noting that Wal-Mart is not proposing to tackle the problem of added sugars in soft drinks, which experts regard as a major contributor to childhood obesity. And he said it would be “nice if Wal-Mart’s timeline were speedier” than five years.
Wal-Mart has been planning the initiative for more than a year; the effort was in its early stages when Ms. Obama joined it. The first lady’s appearance with Mr. Dach and other Wal-Mart executives when they make the announcement at a community center in Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood on Thursday morning is out of the ordinary and a prominent effort by the administration to spur further moves toward healthier food.
“We’re not just aligning ourselves with one company; we’re aligning ourselves with people who are stepping up as leaders to take this country to a healthier place,” said Sam Kass, the White House chef who doubles as Mrs. Obama’s top adviser on matters of nutrition.
“There’s no qualms about that,” Mr. Kass said. “The only question that we have is do we think this is a significant step in that direction, and do we think there is a method in place to track progress, and do we think this will have the impact we are pushing for.”
Over the last year, Mr. Kass and other aides to the first lady have spent countless hours in meetings with company officials; both Mr. Kass and Mr. Dach said Mrs. Obama pushed the company to hold itself accountable by issuing public progress reports. The Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit organization that works with the first lady on her Let’s Move initiative to reduce childhood obesity, will monitor the company’s progress.
The changes will not happen overnight. Wal-Mart is pledging to reduce sodium by 25 percent, eliminate industrially added trans fats and reduce added sugars by 10 percent by 2015. Its other plans are less specific. In addition to proposing to lower prices on healthy foods, Wal-Mart is planning to develop criteria, and ultimately a seal, that will go on truly healthier foods, as measured by their sodium, fat and sugar content.
The company says it will also address the problem of “food deserts” — a dearth of grocery stores selling fresh produce in rural and underserved urban areas like Anacostia — by building more stores. And it will increase charitable contributions for nutrition programs.
A range of studies has shown that low-income people, especially those who receive food stamps, face special dietary challenges because eating healthy costs more and healthier food is harder to get in their neighborhoods. James D. Weill, president of Food Research and Action Center, an organization that has been pressing Wal-Mart to help tackle this problem, said the company seemed to have recognized “how much hunger and food insecurity there is in the country.”
Mr. Dach said the lower prices and food reformulations were motivated by the demands of Wal-Mart’s own customers. He said the company believed that, if it was successful, the price reductions would save Americans who shop at Wal-Mart approximately $1 billion a year on fresh fruits and vegetables alone.
“Our customers have always told us, ’We don’t understand why whole wheat macaroni and cheese costs more than regular macaroni and cheese,’ ” Mr. Dach said, adding, “We’ve always said that we don’t think the Wal-Mart shopper should have to choose between a product that is healthier for them and what they can afford.”
Mr. Jacobson, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said that reducing sodium was the trickiest of the food reformulation challenges. Sodium is in every food category, and it is more difficult to replace than the partly hydrogenated oil that composes trans fats, or than sugars, because there are easy substitutes for oils and sugars. But sodium, which contributes to hypertension and raises the risk of heart disease, must simply be reduced, which can greatly alter taste.
Mr. Dach said the company had yet to conquer its reformulation challenges, and described the goals as both aspirational and realistic. “We think it’s a realistic target, but it’s aspirational in the sense that we can’t tell you today how it’s all going to get done,” he said.
William Neuman contributed reporting from New York.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
GAO Report on Food Labeling
“To ensure that the health-related claims on food labels are not false or misleading to consumers, we recommend that the Secretary of Health and Human Services direct the Commissioner of FDA to take the following three actions:
identify and request from Congress the authorities needed to access evidence from food companies regarding potentially false or misleading structure/function or other claims on food that would allow the agency to establish whether there is scientific support for the claims;
provide guidance to industry on the type and strength of scientific evidence needed to prevent false or misleading information in a structure/function claim; and
amend the Compliance Program Guidance Manual instructions to FDA inspectors for reviewing food labels during inspections of food facilities, to include steps for identifying potentially false or misleading structure/function claims for further review. “
Full report at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11102.pdf
identify and request from Congress the authorities needed to access evidence from food companies regarding potentially false or misleading structure/function or other claims on food that would allow the agency to establish whether there is scientific support for the claims;
provide guidance to industry on the type and strength of scientific evidence needed to prevent false or misleading information in a structure/function claim; and
amend the Compliance Program Guidance Manual instructions to FDA inspectors for reviewing food labels during inspections of food facilities, to include steps for identifying potentially false or misleading structure/function claims for further review. “
Full report at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11102.pdf
Friday, January 14, 2011
USDA Unveils Critical Upgrades to Nutritional Standards for School Meals
Proposed Changes Will Improve the Health and Wellbeing of Children Nationwide and Help Address Childhood Obesity Crisis
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2010 —The U.S. Department of Agriculture today published a proposed rule to update the nutrition standards for meals served through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 13, 2010.
The new proposed meal requirements will raise standards for the first time in fifteen years and will make critical changes to school meals and help improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids that participate in school meal programs every school day, an important component of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative to solve the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation.
"The United States is facing an obesity epidemic and the crisis of poor diets threatens the future of our children – and our nation," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "With many children consuming as many as half their daily calories at school, strengthening nutritional standards is an important step in the Obama administration's effort to combat childhood obesity and improve the health and wellbeing of all our kids."
The proposed changes to school meal standards, which would add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat milk to school meals, are based on recommendations released in October 2009 by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (IOM) and presented in their report, School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children. Schools would also be required to limit the levels of saturated fat, sodium, calories, and trans fats in meals.
A comparison of the proposed nutrition standards can be viewed here.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act gives schools and communities new tools to meet the challenge of providing more nutritious food including increasing school lunch reimbursements by 6 cents per meal, and increasing technical assistance. School meal programs are a partnership between USDA, State agencies and local schools, and USDA will work with schools and communities to help improve meals so that they are consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
"Raising a healthier generation of kids will require hard work and commitment of a host of partners," said Vilsack. "We understand that these improved meal standards may present challenges for some school districts, but the new law provides important new resources, technical assistance and flexibility to help schools raise the bar for our kids."
According to government data, almost 32 percent of children 6 to 19 years of age are overweight or obese; the number of obese children in this age range has trebled in the last few decades. These children are more likely to have risk factors associated with chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes. Updated school meal standards are a central part of the strategy developed by President Obama's Childhood Obesity Task Force to provide healthier food at schools, and in turn, work toward resolving childhood obesity.
USDA is seeking input on the proposed rule from the public through April 13, 2011. Those interested in reviewing the proposal and offering comments are encouraged to do so at www.regulations.gov, a web-based portal to make it easy for citizens to participate in the Federal rulemaking process. All comments received will be considered carefully in finalizing the rule before it is implemented.
USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) oversees the administration of 15 nutrition assistance programs, including the child nutrition programs, that touch the lives of one in four Americans over the course of a year. These programs work in concert to form a national safety net against hunger. Visit www.fns.usda.gov for information about FNS and nutrition assistance programs.
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USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272(voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2010 —The U.S. Department of Agriculture today published a proposed rule to update the nutrition standards for meals served through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 13, 2010.
The new proposed meal requirements will raise standards for the first time in fifteen years and will make critical changes to school meals and help improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids that participate in school meal programs every school day, an important component of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative to solve the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation.
"The United States is facing an obesity epidemic and the crisis of poor diets threatens the future of our children – and our nation," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "With many children consuming as many as half their daily calories at school, strengthening nutritional standards is an important step in the Obama administration's effort to combat childhood obesity and improve the health and wellbeing of all our kids."
The proposed changes to school meal standards, which would add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat milk to school meals, are based on recommendations released in October 2009 by the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (IOM) and presented in their report, School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children. Schools would also be required to limit the levels of saturated fat, sodium, calories, and trans fats in meals.
A comparison of the proposed nutrition standards can be viewed here.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act gives schools and communities new tools to meet the challenge of providing more nutritious food including increasing school lunch reimbursements by 6 cents per meal, and increasing technical assistance. School meal programs are a partnership between USDA, State agencies and local schools, and USDA will work with schools and communities to help improve meals so that they are consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
"Raising a healthier generation of kids will require hard work and commitment of a host of partners," said Vilsack. "We understand that these improved meal standards may present challenges for some school districts, but the new law provides important new resources, technical assistance and flexibility to help schools raise the bar for our kids."
According to government data, almost 32 percent of children 6 to 19 years of age are overweight or obese; the number of obese children in this age range has trebled in the last few decades. These children are more likely to have risk factors associated with chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes. Updated school meal standards are a central part of the strategy developed by President Obama's Childhood Obesity Task Force to provide healthier food at schools, and in turn, work toward resolving childhood obesity.
USDA is seeking input on the proposed rule from the public through April 13, 2011. Those interested in reviewing the proposal and offering comments are encouraged to do so at www.regulations.gov, a web-based portal to make it easy for citizens to participate in the Federal rulemaking process. All comments received will be considered carefully in finalizing the rule before it is implemented.
USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) oversees the administration of 15 nutrition assistance programs, including the child nutrition programs, that touch the lives of one in four Americans over the course of a year. These programs work in concert to form a national safety net against hunger. Visit www.fns.usda.gov for information about FNS and nutrition assistance programs.
#
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272(voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
Population-wide reduction in salt consumption recommended
The American Heart Association Thursday issued a call to action for the public, health professionals, the food industry and the government to intensify efforts to reduce the amount of sodium (salt) Americans consume daily.
In an advisory, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, the association sets out the science behind the American Heart Association’s recommendation for the general population, which is to consume no more than 1500 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day because of the harmful effects of sodium – elevated blood pressure and increased risk of stroke, heart attacks and kidney disease. Elevated blood pressure (hypertension) is a major public health problem – approximately 90 percent of all Americans will develop hypertension over their lifetime.
Sodium consumption is currently more than two times higher than the recommended upper limit of 1,500 mg daily, with 77 percent of that consumption coming from packaged, processed and restaurant foods. “Even a modest decline in intake – say 400 mg per day –would produce benefits that are substantial and warrant implementation,” say the advisory authors. The 2005 United States Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended a sodium intake limit of 2,300 mg per day, which many health experts say is too much for most Americans. Earlier this year, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommended to the secretaries of the United States Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that the goal should be modified to 1,500 mg per day for the general population. The advisory committee consists of leading scientists who reviewed the most recent scientific studies and created a set of recommendations that are being reviewed by the secretaries.
Recently, the American Heart Association lowered their recommendation to no more than 1500 mg of sodium daily for the general public, after a report from the Centers for Disease Control found that a majority of the American population either have high blood pressure or are at high risk for developing it.
According to the advisory:
· As sodium intake rises, so does blood pressure and the risk of negative health outcomes.
· Independent of its effects on blood pressure, excess sodium intake adversely affects the heart, kidneys, and blood vessels.
· The potential public health benefits of sodium reduction are enormous and extend to all Americans.
· Scientific evidence on the adverse effects of excess sodium is strong and compelling
· The American Heart Association’s 2020 impact goals – to improve the cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20 percent while reducing deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke by 20 percent – include a population-wide reduction of sodium consumption to less than 1,500 mg daily as one of the ways the association will measure the nation’s cardiovascular health. Furthermore, a normal range blood pressure is another key factor the association will use to measure the nation’s cardiovascular health status.
· The American Heart Association is part of the National Salt Reduction Initiative, which is working with the food industry to reduce sodium content in packaged and restaurant food.
Inherent to the negative health effects are rising healthcare costs, the authors add. They point to one recent study that suggests a national effort that reduces sodium intake by 1,200 mg per day should reduce the health burdens related to heart disease in addition to reducing costs by up to $24 billion per year.
“Americans deserve the opportunity to choose how much sodium is in the food they eat. By supporting measures that will reduce sodium in the overall food supply, we are giving consumers freedom to select foods that could allow them to meet sodium recommendations and improve their ideal cardiovascular health,” said Ralph Sacco, M.D., president of the American Heart Association.
The American Heart Association advocates for more robust sodium criteria within school nutrition standards, foods advertised and marketed to children and foods purchased by employers or government feeding programs, and for the Secretaries of HHS and USDA to adopt the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommendations.
The association also supports improved food labeling that helps consumers understand how much sodium is in their diet and consumer education in restaurants to help consumers choose lower-sodium options.
Adapted from materials provided by the American Heart Association
In an advisory, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, the association sets out the science behind the American Heart Association’s recommendation for the general population, which is to consume no more than 1500 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day because of the harmful effects of sodium – elevated blood pressure and increased risk of stroke, heart attacks and kidney disease. Elevated blood pressure (hypertension) is a major public health problem – approximately 90 percent of all Americans will develop hypertension over their lifetime.
Sodium consumption is currently more than two times higher than the recommended upper limit of 1,500 mg daily, with 77 percent of that consumption coming from packaged, processed and restaurant foods. “Even a modest decline in intake – say 400 mg per day –would produce benefits that are substantial and warrant implementation,” say the advisory authors. The 2005 United States Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended a sodium intake limit of 2,300 mg per day, which many health experts say is too much for most Americans. Earlier this year, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommended to the secretaries of the United States Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that the goal should be modified to 1,500 mg per day for the general population. The advisory committee consists of leading scientists who reviewed the most recent scientific studies and created a set of recommendations that are being reviewed by the secretaries.
Recently, the American Heart Association lowered their recommendation to no more than 1500 mg of sodium daily for the general public, after a report from the Centers for Disease Control found that a majority of the American population either have high blood pressure or are at high risk for developing it.
According to the advisory:
· As sodium intake rises, so does blood pressure and the risk of negative health outcomes.
· Independent of its effects on blood pressure, excess sodium intake adversely affects the heart, kidneys, and blood vessels.
· The potential public health benefits of sodium reduction are enormous and extend to all Americans.
· Scientific evidence on the adverse effects of excess sodium is strong and compelling
· The American Heart Association’s 2020 impact goals – to improve the cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20 percent while reducing deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke by 20 percent – include a population-wide reduction of sodium consumption to less than 1,500 mg daily as one of the ways the association will measure the nation’s cardiovascular health. Furthermore, a normal range blood pressure is another key factor the association will use to measure the nation’s cardiovascular health status.
· The American Heart Association is part of the National Salt Reduction Initiative, which is working with the food industry to reduce sodium content in packaged and restaurant food.
Inherent to the negative health effects are rising healthcare costs, the authors add. They point to one recent study that suggests a national effort that reduces sodium intake by 1,200 mg per day should reduce the health burdens related to heart disease in addition to reducing costs by up to $24 billion per year.
“Americans deserve the opportunity to choose how much sodium is in the food they eat. By supporting measures that will reduce sodium in the overall food supply, we are giving consumers freedom to select foods that could allow them to meet sodium recommendations and improve their ideal cardiovascular health,” said Ralph Sacco, M.D., president of the American Heart Association.
The American Heart Association advocates for more robust sodium criteria within school nutrition standards, foods advertised and marketed to children and foods purchased by employers or government feeding programs, and for the Secretaries of HHS and USDA to adopt the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommendations.
The association also supports improved food labeling that helps consumers understand how much sodium is in their diet and consumer education in restaurants to help consumers choose lower-sodium options.
Adapted from materials provided by the American Heart Association
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Adolescent Obesity in the United States
Source: National Center for Children in Poverty
- Adolescent obesity in the United States has many important implications for both the health and well-being of the individual and society. Specific negative impacts of obesity on health include increased susceptibility to a host of diseases, chronic health disorders, psychological disorders, and premature death, which in turn add billions of dollars in health care costs each year.3 Excess medical costs due to overweight adolescents are estimated at more than $14 billion per year.
- Furthermore, adolescent obesity affects our nation’s ability to protect itself; more than a quarter of 17- to 24-year-olds are not fit to enroll in the military due to their weight. Adolescence is a crucial period for establishing healthy behaviors. Many of the habits formed during this developmental stage will last well into adulthood. Although obesity is a complex problem not yet fully understood by researchers, by addressing the known factors that contribute to obesity in adolescence, policymakers can help ensure a healthy and productive adulthood for our nation’s youth.
- Obesity and poor nutrition – combined with mental health disorders and emotional problems, violence and unintentional injury, substance use, and reproductive health problems – form part of a complex web of potential challenges to adolescents’ healthy emotional and physical development.
Monday, January 10, 2011
National Bureau of Economic Research: Is Obesity Rational?
The rise of obesity in the U.S. is a major public health concern. Nearly one in three adults were obese in the early 2000s, up from one in seven a quarter-century earlier. If current trends continue, the obesity rate will rise to over 40 percent by 2020. Obesity is linked to diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma and to premature mortality - if left unchecked, the rise in obesity threatens to reverse historical gains in life expectancy. The rise in obesity is also an important contributor to the growth of health care costs in the U.S.
To understand the rise in obesity, it is important to understand how individuals make decisions about eating and other behaviors that affect body weight. In Understanding Overeating and Obesity (NBER Working Paper 16149 <http://www.nber.org/papers/w16149> ), researcher Christopher Ruhm <http://www.nber.org/people/Christopher_Ruhm> lays out two models of eating and weight regulation and ex-amines empirical evidence to test which model is more consistent with people's behavior.
Ruhm begins with the rational economic model. In this model, individuals trade off the utility (or happiness) from eating food today against the expense and disutility of future weight gain. Individuals make the best decisions they can given the information they have and the constraints on their income and time. Under specified conditions, decisions are optimal (utility-maximizing) at the time they are made, even if the arrival of new information makes the decision look like a mistake in retrospect. In this economic model, factors such as falling food prices are the most likely explanation for the rise in obesity.
Of course, eating decisions may reflect biology as well as economics. Humans have been genetically pro-grammed over millions of years to eat, with the primary goal being to obtain enough calories for survival. In an environment where food is cheap and readily available, biological programming may lead to overeating.
Ruhm formalizes this intuition in a "dual decision" model. The key insight of the model is that eating decisions are influenced by two parts of the brain, the "affective" system and the "deliberative" system. The affective system coordinates sensory inputs to generate emotional states like anger or happiness. This system responds to cues and stimuli - for example, the presence of food may generate endorphin and dopamine responses.
The deliberative system incorporates higher cognitive processes, such as abstract thinking and planning, which account for long-term consequences of actions. In the dual decision model, "eating behaviors reflect the combined influence of a utility-maximizing deliberative system and an affective system that responds quickly and impulsively to external stimuli, without accounting for the long-term consequences."
The dual decision model has a number of implications for body weight and eating behavior. First, this model predicts that many people will be heavier than their utility-maximizing weight and will attempt to lose weight. In the rational model, by contrast, weight gain is utility maximizing and will rarely be accompanied by weight loss attempts.
Second, the dual decision model suggests that people with poor self-control or strong affective systems will be particularly susceptible to making eating mistakes. Since these people tend to have high body-mass index (or BMI, a measure of body weight calibrated by height), behaviors such as weight loss attempts will be con-centrated among this group. In the rational model, there is no expected correlation with BMI.
Third, in the dual decision model there is more potential for "food engineering" (the strategic manipulation of food characteristics such as fat, sugar, and salt content to increase food consumption) to affect weight. In the rational model, food engineering can change an individual's optimal weight by affecting the pleasure obtained from eating, but in the dual decision model it can activate the affective system as well. Affective system responses will be stronger among those with high BMI, so overeating and the consumption of engineered foods will increase more over time among this group.
Ruhm uses data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to explore which model better explains trends in body weight, weight loss attempts, overeating, and consumption of engineered foods.
He has several key findings. First, body weight has risen rapidly over time, particularly in the right tail of the distribution - the BMI of men at the 90th and 95th percentile rose by 4.5 and 5.5 points over the past 25 years, versus 2.1 points at the median. Explanations related to the rational model, such as falling food prices, appear insufficient to explain these trends, since food prices fell only during the early part of the period while the rise in BMI continued throughout the period.
Second, the desire to lose weight strengthens with BMI, is pervasive among overweight and obese individuals, and has become more common over time. High-BMI individuals also experience greater fluctuations in their weight, which is consistent with their having periods of heavy eating combined with repeated efforts to lose weight.
Third, obese individuals consume disproportionate amounts of salt and fat, and the relationship between BMI and this consumption of salt and fat has strengthened over time. This is consistent with a greater role for food engineering as a cause of obesity over time.
In summary, the available evidence on body weight, weight loss, and food consumption is consistent with eating "mistakes" related to the dual decision model and is hard to reconcile with the standard utility-maximizing model.
These findings have important implications for policy. If the affective system plays an important role in eating decisions, this will tend to reduce the effectiveness of anti-obesity policies that rely on rational deci-sion-making, such as taxing foods with high fat, sugar, or salt content or providing more information on the content of foods. A strong affective system may also point to the usefulness of policies advocated by beha-vioral economists, such as altering the location of food in a cafeteria line or reducing portion size in order to manipulate food-related stimuli.
Ruhm concludes "mistakes are a central feature of dual decision-making, implying a wider potential role for policy." However, he cautions "the specific interventions will often be complicated and, if poorly implemented, will reduce rather than increase utility. The general reluctance of economists to engage in policy activism therefore retains merit."
http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/2010no2/w16149.html
To understand the rise in obesity, it is important to understand how individuals make decisions about eating and other behaviors that affect body weight. In Understanding Overeating and Obesity (NBER Working Paper 16149 <http://www.nber.org/papers/w16149> ), researcher Christopher Ruhm <http://www.nber.org/people/Christopher_Ruhm> lays out two models of eating and weight regulation and ex-amines empirical evidence to test which model is more consistent with people's behavior.
Ruhm begins with the rational economic model. In this model, individuals trade off the utility (or happiness) from eating food today against the expense and disutility of future weight gain. Individuals make the best decisions they can given the information they have and the constraints on their income and time. Under specified conditions, decisions are optimal (utility-maximizing) at the time they are made, even if the arrival of new information makes the decision look like a mistake in retrospect. In this economic model, factors such as falling food prices are the most likely explanation for the rise in obesity.
Of course, eating decisions may reflect biology as well as economics. Humans have been genetically pro-grammed over millions of years to eat, with the primary goal being to obtain enough calories for survival. In an environment where food is cheap and readily available, biological programming may lead to overeating.
Ruhm formalizes this intuition in a "dual decision" model. The key insight of the model is that eating decisions are influenced by two parts of the brain, the "affective" system and the "deliberative" system. The affective system coordinates sensory inputs to generate emotional states like anger or happiness. This system responds to cues and stimuli - for example, the presence of food may generate endorphin and dopamine responses.
The deliberative system incorporates higher cognitive processes, such as abstract thinking and planning, which account for long-term consequences of actions. In the dual decision model, "eating behaviors reflect the combined influence of a utility-maximizing deliberative system and an affective system that responds quickly and impulsively to external stimuli, without accounting for the long-term consequences."
The dual decision model has a number of implications for body weight and eating behavior. First, this model predicts that many people will be heavier than their utility-maximizing weight and will attempt to lose weight. In the rational model, by contrast, weight gain is utility maximizing and will rarely be accompanied by weight loss attempts.
Second, the dual decision model suggests that people with poor self-control or strong affective systems will be particularly susceptible to making eating mistakes. Since these people tend to have high body-mass index (or BMI, a measure of body weight calibrated by height), behaviors such as weight loss attempts will be con-centrated among this group. In the rational model, there is no expected correlation with BMI.
Third, in the dual decision model there is more potential for "food engineering" (the strategic manipulation of food characteristics such as fat, sugar, and salt content to increase food consumption) to affect weight. In the rational model, food engineering can change an individual's optimal weight by affecting the pleasure obtained from eating, but in the dual decision model it can activate the affective system as well. Affective system responses will be stronger among those with high BMI, so overeating and the consumption of engineered foods will increase more over time among this group.
Ruhm uses data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to explore which model better explains trends in body weight, weight loss attempts, overeating, and consumption of engineered foods.
He has several key findings. First, body weight has risen rapidly over time, particularly in the right tail of the distribution - the BMI of men at the 90th and 95th percentile rose by 4.5 and 5.5 points over the past 25 years, versus 2.1 points at the median. Explanations related to the rational model, such as falling food prices, appear insufficient to explain these trends, since food prices fell only during the early part of the period while the rise in BMI continued throughout the period.
Second, the desire to lose weight strengthens with BMI, is pervasive among overweight and obese individuals, and has become more common over time. High-BMI individuals also experience greater fluctuations in their weight, which is consistent with their having periods of heavy eating combined with repeated efforts to lose weight.
Third, obese individuals consume disproportionate amounts of salt and fat, and the relationship between BMI and this consumption of salt and fat has strengthened over time. This is consistent with a greater role for food engineering as a cause of obesity over time.
In summary, the available evidence on body weight, weight loss, and food consumption is consistent with eating "mistakes" related to the dual decision model and is hard to reconcile with the standard utility-maximizing model.
These findings have important implications for policy. If the affective system plays an important role in eating decisions, this will tend to reduce the effectiveness of anti-obesity policies that rely on rational deci-sion-making, such as taxing foods with high fat, sugar, or salt content or providing more information on the content of foods. A strong affective system may also point to the usefulness of policies advocated by beha-vioral economists, such as altering the location of food in a cafeteria line or reducing portion size in order to manipulate food-related stimuli.
Ruhm concludes "mistakes are a central feature of dual decision-making, implying a wider potential role for policy." However, he cautions "the specific interventions will often be complicated and, if poorly implemented, will reduce rather than increase utility. The general reluctance of economists to engage in policy activism therefore retains merit."
http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/2010no2/w16149.html
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