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.
To read more, download the pdf
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.
To read more, download the pdf
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.
To read more, download the pdf
I would like to share a blog post written by Katherine Hobson at the Wall Street Journal about the recent Toy Ban in California. This blog is related to kids marketing, however, this is not the issue in San Francisco. The politicians who support the Toy Ban are banking on big financial pay-offs in their upcoming elections. The legislation is not regarding kids or obesity, but rather for us to choose why we need elected officials who think they should supersede parental rights. Maybe we need elected officials who concern themselves with protecting our families from high crime, prostitution, poor health care, illegal immigrants and improving education.
If passed, legislation introduced in San Francisco — contrary to what you may have heard — would not pry your McDonald’s Happy Meal toys out of your cold, dead hands. What it would do, however, is to keep the trinkets out of meals that don’t meet a set of nutritional standards.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, there would be a 600-calorie cap on the entire meal, with no one item containing more than 200 calories. There would be sodium and fat limits, too, and the meal would have to include fruits and veggies. Only a few types of Happy Meals would qualify, the paper says, and promotions from Burger King and Jack in the Box would also be affected.
