Tag: obesity
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Surgeon General Calls for National Grassroots Effort to Reverse Obesity Trend
Surgeon General Regina Benjamin has issued a report calling for Americans to join her in a “national grassroots effort” to reverse the “crisis” of overweight and obese adults and children. The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation 2010 warns that if the trend continues, many children “will be afflicted in early adulthood…
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Panel Urges Obesity Screenings, Comprehensive Weight-Management for Kids
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued a recommendation statement advising clinicians to screen children ages 6 and older for obesity and to refer them for intensive counseling and behavior treatment if warranted. USPSTF bases its guidance “on a systematic review of the evidence of the benefits and harms and an assessment of the…
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CDC Data Suggest Obesity Rates Leveling Off
Two recent studies have reportedly suggested that obesity rates in America have remained constant for at least five years among men and closer to 10 years for women and children. Using data obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers concluded that although approximately 32 percent…
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Study Claims Obesity Rivals Smoking as Contributor to “Burden of Disease”
A forthcoming study has reportedly concluded that, in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) lost, “the overall health burden of obesity among U.S. adults has increased consistently since 1993” and now rivals the overall health burden of smoking. Haomiao Jia and Erica Lubetkin, “Trends in Quality-Adjusted Life Years Lost Contributed by Smoking and Obesity: Does…
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U.S. Agencies Announce Plans to Regulate Food Marketing to Kids
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently hosted a forum titled “Sizing up Food Marketing and Obesity,” which heard proposals from federal agencies, consumer watchdogs and industry representatives for regulating food advertising to children. In addition to addressing new research, First Amendment issues and self-regulatory initiatives, the forum unveiled a set of proposed nutritional standards (SNAC…
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British Researchers Find Genetic Clue to Severe Obesity in Children
British researchers studying 300 Caucasian children with “severe early-onset obesity” (that is, 220 pounds by age 10) discovered that rare chromosome 16 DNA deletions, which remove a gene the brain needs to respond to leptin, an appetite-controlling hormone, gave the children a “very strong drive to eat.” Elena Bochukova, et al., “Large, rare chromosomal deletions…
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Judith Monroe, et al., “Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control: A Framework for Action,” Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (Summer 2009 Supplement)
This symposium article, co-authored by public health officials and a lawmaker, an attorney and a physician, presents the legal perspective on obesity prevention and control and focuses, for the most part, on public health laws and initiatives that have begun to address issues that affect obesity. The examples cited include laws regulating the nutritional value…
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FTC Forum to Address Food Marketing to Children
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced a December 15, 2009, public forum titled “Sizing Up Food Marketing and Childhood Obesity,” which will include panels of industry representatives, federal regulators, consumer groups, scientific researchers, and legal scholars. The forum will address (i) the progress of self-regulatory initiatives, particularly the food and entertainment industries’ responses to…