obesity

Palin, the cookie monster

Sarah Palin has found a new way to channel the Tea Party movement's anti-big-government fervor — and tweak First Lady Michelle Obama at the same time. On Nov. 9, she showed up at a Pennsylvania school bearing dozens of cookies, a gesture intended to show her disapproval of a state proposal to limit the sweets served in public schools. "Who should be making the decisions what you eat and school choice and everything else?" Palin asked the students, in a clear swipe at the First Lady's campaign to end childhood obesity. "Should it be government or should it be the parents?"


McDonald's: We're not as bad as arsenic! And we create (pretty lousy) jobs!

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Faced with fresh assaults on fast food from politicians and anti- obesity activists, the restaurant industry is gearing up to fight back, emphasizing the role fast-food businesses have played in providing jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

 

That's the lead paragraph from a story in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, and I just have to laugh at the attempt to misdirect.


From the Rudd Center

I don't know how far I'll get with it, but this is the first in a series of data gathered and interpreted by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. The center released its extensive f.a.c.t.s. report this week. The acronym stands for Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score.

The fast food industry spent more than $4.2 billion in 2009 on TV advertising, radio, magazines, outdoor advertising, and other media.


Anyone can see this is wrong, right?

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Anyone who gives thought to food politics knows that it is supremely fugged up.

* We subsidize corn to the point that no bushel grown in the US would make a profit if not for Uncle Sam's contribution.

* Through the subsidies, we urge our fellow citizens to eat processed food at the expense of fresh. 

* Even nuttier, we never intended that outcome, but the chance of changing it is all but nil, because the situation is locked in by lobbyists.


A nice gig

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I greatly enjoyed my first foray onto public radio this morning, sharing the air with Dr. David Kessler, the author of "The End of Overeating." 

I'd only give my appearance a B- or so, — lots of "ums" and "uhs," etc. — and I hope I'll get better with more opportunity.


It's fish wrap by now, but...

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Last week when the Marie Claire blogger scare was going on, I was asked to weigh in at CommonHealth, a blog operated by WBUR. I was grateful to be asked and pleased to participate. 

The short version of this was, it isn't so bad, to me, that the blogger said she doesn't find fat people aesthetically pleasing. Honestly, neither do I. And here's the key point: Neither do most fat people I know! They aren't proud of how they look, and they don't much like seeing others. 


"Born Round"

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I had some pretty good selfish reasons to want not to like "Born Round," New York Timesman Frank Bruni's memoir, but I was unable to escape the obvious: The book is terrific.

I won't give a full-fledged rave because, with his perch at the NYT, his incredible connections beyond, his stunning array of to-die-for blurbers, his impossbily accomplished resume, and his sophisticated-but-not-showy writing style, he doesn't need it.


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