Category: Other Developments
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Battle over “Addictive” Flamin’ Hot Cheetos® Heats Up
School districts in California, New Mexico and Illinois have reportedly publicized their intention to ban “Flamin’ Hot” Cheetos® snacks from campus vending machines and lunches over concerns about the product’s nutritional content. According to media reports, the schools in question have described the snack item as “hyperpalatable” with each bag containing 26 grams of fat…
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NEJM Perspective Focuses on Use of SCOTUS Health Care Ruling to Promote Policy Objectives
A New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) perspective essay titled “The Taxing Power and the Public’s Health” asserts that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in a case challenging the validity of the Affordable Care Act opens the door to government using its taxing authority to achieve a range of policy objectives including “interventions to…
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NEJM Perspective Piece Targets “Candy at the Cash Register”
A recent perspective piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine has argued that “steps should be taken” to curb “spur-of-the moment, emotion-related purchases… triggered by seeing the product or a related message.” Deborah Cohen & Susan Babey, et al., “Candy at the Cash Register — A Risk Factor for Obesity and Chronic Disease,” NEJM,…
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“BeeBots” Generate Buzz Worldwide
Researchers with the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex recently announced plans to build a computer model of the honey bee brain that would eventually pilot “an autonomous flying robot.” According to an October 2, 2012, press release, the “Green Brain” project aims to produce a tiny flying robot able to sense and act like a…
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Retired Military Leaders Say American Youth “Still Too Fat to Fight”
Mission: Readiness, a non-profit organization of senior retired military leaders, has issued a second report claiming that one in four young adults are still “too overweight to enlist.” Titled “Still Too Fat to Fight,” the latest report alleges that U.S. students “consume almost 400 billion calories from junk food sold at schools each year.” It…
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Transgenic Cow Raises Questions About FDA Approval Process
According to a recent report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have successfully engineered a transgenic dairy cow that produces milk with decreased levels of β-lactoglobulin (BLG), a major allergen which is not present in human milk. Anower Jabed, et al., “Targeted microRNA expression in dairy cattle directs production of β-lactoglobulin-free, high-casein…
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NBER Paper Compares Changes in Smoking and Obesity Rates and Effects on Mortality
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has issued a paper titled “Projecting the Effect of Changes in Smoking and Obesity on Future Life Expectancy in the United States.” Funded by the Social Security Administration and a grant from the National Institute on Aging, the research applied Markov modeling to National Health and Nutrition Examination…
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IASO Report Criticizes Industry Pledge to Reduce Youth Marketing
The International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO) has released a report criticizing the food and beverage industry’s efforts to reduce marketing to children in the European Union. Part of the StanMark Project, which receives EU funding, A Junk-Free Childhood 2012 focuses on the EU Pledge signed by 20 companies that agreed to stop…