Tag: obesity
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Elizabeth Kolbert, “XXXL: Why Are We So Fat?,” The New Yorker, July 20, 2009
“Whether anything will be done – or even can be done – to stem the global tide of obesity is, at this point, an open question,” writes New Yorker columnist Elizabeth Kolbert in her review of several “weight-gain books” that examine the causes and course of this recent phenomenon. The theories under consideration include those…
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Rudd Center Releases Report on Effects of TV Food Advertising on Consumption
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has released the results of experimental studies examining the relationship between TV food advertising and consumption. Titled “Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior,” the article appears in the July edition of Health Psychology and concludes that “food advertising on television increases automatic snacking…
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CDC to Host “Weight of the Nation” Conference
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has scheduled a conference for public policymakers, health leaders and others to consider “progress in the prevention and control of obesity through policy and environmental strategies.” The inaugural “Weight of the Nation Conference” will be held July 27-29, 2009, in Washington, D.C.; an interactive discussion format for…
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Health Advocates Call on President Obama to Combat Obesity with New Commission
President Barack Obama (D) has been urged by health organizations, nutrition experts and physicians to sign an executive order creating a Presidential Commission on Healthy Weights, Healthy Lives to take on the nation’s escalating rates of obesity. In a June 22, 2009, letter to the president, signatories suggested that the United Kingdom’s anti-obesity campaign could…
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AMA Declines to Label Obesity a Disability
The American Medical Association (AMA) has reportedly voted against a policy that would describe obesity as a disability, citing concerns over patient care and litigation. In particular, some AMA members noted that a disability designation might curb the willingness of physicians to openly discuss weight issues with their patients. “If obesity is designated as a…
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ACSH Criticizes Banzhaf’s Call for Fast-Food Calorie Disclosures and Taxes on Snacks and Beverages
The director of nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a non-profit “consumer education consortium,” recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer responding to an opinion piece authored by John Banzhaf, an anti-tobacco crusader and law school professor who in recent years has turned his attention to…
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Ashley Antler, “The Role of Litigation in Combating Obesity Among Poor Urban Minority Youth: A Critical Analysis of Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp.,” Cardozo Journal of Law & Gender, Winter 2009
This student-authored case note discusses the obesity-related class litigation filed in 2002 against McDonald’s Corp. involving named plaintiffs who are urban minority youths. The author contends that, while the proposed class definition includes a much broader population of New York residents, framing such litigation to connect obesity with socioeconomic status and race “could have been a…
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Research Suggests Phthalates Linked to Child Obesity
A long-term study by the Mount Sinai Medical Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research has reportedly suggested a link between childhood obesity and endocrine disruptors, including phthalates and bisphenol A. Part of a study titled “Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem,” the project followed 520 children ages 6 to 8 for five…