With nearly 33% of children in America considered to be overweight or obese - a rate that has tripled in adolescents and more than doubled in younger children since 1980 - an Obama Administration task force recently established a goal of reducing the childhood obesity rate to just 5% by 2030, less than a generation away.
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According to C & R's Youth Beat, kids eat at a restaurant 2.5 times a month. In an average 30-day month, there are 150 meal occasions:
- 30 Breakfasts
- 30 Lunches
- 30 Dinners
- 60 Snacks (at twice a day)
If kids are only going to restaurants 2-3 times a month, they account for only
2 percent of all meal occasions.
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President Bill Clinton Honors 179 U.S.
Schools
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, founded by the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation, today recognized 179 schools that have transformed their campuses into healthier places for students and staff.
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Here is an article from The Center for Consumer Freedom about Kelly Brownell, CSPI’s advisory board member and Yale’s resident food-policy and obesity blowhard, pushing for more government involvement to help lower obesity rates.
Kelly Brownell, Yale’s resident food-policy and obesity blowhard, is once again using the opinion page of the Hartford Courant to score some points in favor of wildly unpopular and ineffective soda taxes and other food legislation. In Brownell’s newest version of the same old tune, he insists that government, not individuals, should play the biggest role in slimming everyone down:
Governments around the country and in Washington are considering public policies to create a better nutrition environment in schools, require honest claims on food packages, restrict food marketing directed at children and even — the most controversial proposal of all — a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Connecticut has much to be proud of, including the strongest school nutrition legislation in the country and action by our attorney general to shut down the food industry’s Smart Choices program, which assigned healthy eating labels to foods such as Froot Loops and Cocoa Krispies.
Make no mistake — this debate about personal responsibility and government action is about money. Obesity rates will go down when the country eats less and exercises more. Whether someone exercises is as personal a decision as choosing what to eat.
