Food Law Prof Blog

Mom was right! Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day

On March 25, 2008, The New York Times reported that researchers have found adolescents that eat breakfast are less likely to be overweight.  According to The Times, the authors of the study “found a direct relationship between eating breakfast and body mass index.”  Essentially, the more often a child eats breakfast, the lower the B.M.I.

The five-year longitudinal study was completed by researchers and professors at the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota.  The study examined a racially and economically diverse sample from various public schools in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

The study, Breakfast Eating and Weight Change in a 5-Year Prospective Analysis of Adolescents: Project EAT (Eating Among Teens) was published in the March issue of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.   

The study’s objective was to examine the association between breakfast frequency and 5-year body weight change in adolescents.  The study primarily relied on self-reports of weight and eating habits of 2,216 adolescents.  Although the study concluded there is an association between breakfast frequency and change in BMI, the study was unable to determine whether the association is in fact causal in nature.  The study itself recognizes this in noting “long-term studies…will be needed to evaluate the possibility of an important causal link between breakfast consumption and risk for obesity and chronic diseases.”  The study hopes that interventions, especially in a school setting, could be aimed at promoting a healthy breakfast.  Such a breakfast might include whole grain cereals, low-fat milk, and fresh fruit.

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student Maureen Ventura for preparing this post.

Recent Efforts to Ban Junk Food Sales in Schools

According to an early December New York Times Article, federal lawmakers were considering a national ban on selling junk food in school vending machines. The measure, which was an amendment to the farm bill, faced significant hurdles before this beneficial change could become a reality.

Federal lawmakers are considering the broadest effort ever to limit what children eat: a national ban on selling candy, sugary soda and salty, fatty food in school snack bars, vending machines and à la carte cafeteria lines. Whether the measure, an amendment to the farm bill, can survive the convoluted politics that have bogged down that legislation in the Senate is one issue. Whether it can survive the battle among factions in the fight to improve school food is another.

No such luck.  On Thursday, December 13, 2007, the Senate dropped the amendment. According to a December 15, 2007 Washington Post Article :

The Senate on Thursday night dropped an amendment to the farm bill that would have banned fatty foods and high-calorie beverages at school snack bars, stores and vending machines, dealing a blow to its chances of passage.

The National School Nutrition Standards Amendment, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), would have been the first legislation to update the nutrition standards since 1979, a period in which scientific opinion on what foods are appropriate has drastically shifted. Link to the current bill: Bill Summary and Status

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student Helen McDonough for preparing this post. 

CSPI Report on Junk Food Marketing in Schools

Junk food marketing is prevalent in our schools.  The marketing influences children's food choices, and in turn, their health. Should foods marketed in schools meet certain nutrition standards?

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest press release:

WASHINGTON: Junk-food and soda makers directly market to young children right in their schools, according to a new survey of public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland. Conducted at the request of Montgomery County Council Member George Leventhal, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) found that the most prevalent forms of marketing in schools are signs on the exteriors of vending machines, food sales in vending machines, posters, and school fundraisers.

Eighty-three percent of schools have posters or signs with food or beverage marketing messages (such as posters for Rich’s ice cream or Little Debbie snack cakes), and less than half (42 percent) of those signs market healthier categories such as dairy.

more (press release)

Montgomery County survey (pdf)

Thanks to William Mitchell College of Law student Helen McDonough for preparing this post.

Study finds Children on Organic Diets have Lower Pesticide Exposure

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer this week reported on a study published by Environmental Health Perspectives, which found that children who ate non-organic produce were found to have measurable amounts of pesticides in their systems while those children who ate organic produce were found to have no pesticides in their systems. 

From the article:

"The transformation is extremely rapid," said Chensheng Lu, the principal author of the study published online in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

"Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets," said Lu, a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children.

Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected in the testing.

The subjects for his testing were 21 children, ages 3 to 11, from two elementary schools and a Montessori preschool on Mercer Island.

Note:the news article says that the study was published "the current issue" of Environmental Health Perspectives, but the study was actually published in 2005, and as far as we can tell, there has not been a more recent version published.

Link to Abstract on the Environmental Health Perspectives website.
Link to Full Study (pdf) at OrganicConsumers.org
Link to information on Chensheng Lu

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student Anne Rucker, who prepared this post.

Better Childhood Nutrition Increases Economic Prosperity

A study published this week in The Lancet  showed a link between early childhood nutrition and economic prosperity later in live. From the International Food Policy Research Institute Press Release:

Washington, DC—Feeding very young children a high-energy, high-protein supplement leads to increased economic productivity in adulthood, especially for men, according to a study published in the current issue of The Lancet, a leading medical journal.

Boys who received the supplement, known as atole, in the first two years of life earned on average 46 percent higher wages as adults, while boys who received atole in their first three years earned 37 percent higher wages on average. Those who first received the supplement after age three did not gain any economic benefits as adults.

This study is the first to present direct evidence of the effects of early childhood nutrition programs on adult economic productivity and incomes. The research was conducted in Guatemala by Emory University, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama, the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlebury College.

Article: Effect of a nutrition intervention during early childhood on economic productivity in Guatemalan adults, The Lancet 2008; 371:411-416 (requires login but registration is free).

Reuters: http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL31352837.html

Baby Formula Additives -- Cornucopia study says not like breast milk

The Cornucopia Institute has just released a report on Omega-3 fatty acid additives in infant formula.  A brief summary and an interview with Cornucopia co-founder, Mark Kastel, were aired on NPR's Marketplace today.  The full story is available on the Cornucopia website:

Marketing Gimmick” Linked to Serious Infant Illnesses

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA: A report released today by The Cornucopia Institute presents research indicating that new additives placed in infant formula are seriously endangering the health of some formula-fed newborns and toddlers.

The report, Replacing Mother—Imitating Human Breast Milk in the Laboratory, details research questioning the alleged benefits of adding “novel” omega-3 fatty acids, produced in laboratories and extracted from algae and fungus, into infant formulas. The additives raised health and safety red flags during preapproval testing while aggressive marketing campaigns by some infant formula manufacturers appear to have encouraged new mothers to give up nursing for the questionable infant products.

more

CSPI gives schools poor grades in nutrition

From Center for Science in the Public Interest:

WASHINGTON— Kentucky and Oregon top the nation in healthy school foods policies, but two-thirds of states have no or weak nutrition standards to limit junk-food and soda sales out of vending machines, school stores, and other venues outside of school meals, according to a school foods report card from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).  . . .

Most improved honors go to Oregon, which upgraded from an F in last year’s report card to an A-, and Washington state, which moved from an F to a B+. Since CSPI’s last report card in 2006, Oregon passed a comprehensive school snack and beverage policy which limits calories, saturated and trans fat, and sugars in snacks in K-12 schools and limits the sale of most sugary beverages in schools. Both states previously had no guidelines beyond USDA’s bare-bones rules.

Link to Center for Science in the Public Interest

NYT on Efforts to Limit Junk Food in Schools

From Sunday's New York Times (website may require registration):

Effort to Limit Junk Food in Schools Faces Hurdles, by Kim Severson

Federal lawmakers are considering the broadest effort ever to limit what children eat: a national ban on selling candy, sugary soda and salty, fatty food in school snack bars, vending machines and à la carte cafeteria lines.

Whether the measure, an amendment to the farm bill, can survive the convoluted politics that have bogged down that legislation in the Senate is one issue. Whether it can survive the battle among factions in the fight to improve school food is another.

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, has twice introduced bills to deal with foods other than the standard school lunch, which is regulated by Department of Agriculture.

more

Texas fitness policy for grades 3-12

In attempt to combat the trends and gain some knowledge of how healthy, or unhealthy, Texas students really are, lawmakers during the last legislative session passed a bill requiring school districts to annually assess the fitness and activity levels of all students in grades three through 12, and report those findings to the Texas Education Agency.   This bill, which piggy backs on recent changes in the Texas school nutrition policy, is now taking effect throughout the Texas school system.

Article:

http://www.lufkindailynews.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/11/18/student_health.html

Food nutrition policy:

http://www.squaremeals.org/fn/home/page/0,1248,2348_0_0_0,00.html
fitness bill:  (deals only with physical activity, not food)

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/76R/billtext/html/SB00530F.htm

(Thanks to William Mitchell College of Law student Teri Carlisano for preparing this post)

Anti-freeze and cupcakes -- The Daily Show on Cupcakes

The Daily Show did a clip on the dangers of cupcakes last night:

University of Wisconsin to lead Farm-to-School efforts in Midwest

UW news release:

UW center will lead efforts to expand farm-to-school programs in Midwest

The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named as lead agency in a six-state area for a new national program to encourage schools to serve more locally grown food.

As regional lead agency for the National Farm-to-School Network, CIAS will be the hub for farm-to-school activities in the Great Lakes region, encompassing Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Indiana.

The national network is supported by a three-year, $2.4 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The national network allots funds to the regional agencies with the proviso that its contributions be matched dollar-for-dollar with funds from other sources.

more

CDC School health study results available

From CDC:

The School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) 2006 is the largest, most comprehensive assessment of school health policies and programs in the United States ever conducted.

This new report describes key school health policies and practices across all eight school health program components: health education, physical education and activity, health services, mental health and social services, nutrition services, healthy and safe school environment, faculty and staff health promotion, and family and community involvement. In addition, SHPPS 2006 includes new topics—crisis preparedness and response, and the physical school environment—which reflect new issues and concerns in school health and public health.

According to the New York Times,

The survey, which is conducted every six years, shows that more schools than six years ago offer salads and vegetables and that fewer permit bake sales. More states and school districts insist that elementary schools schedule recess and that physical education teachers have at least undergraduate training. More states have enacted policies to prohibit smoking at school and to require courses on pregnancy prevention.

Perhaps most striking, 30 percent of school districts have banned junk food from school vending machines, up from 4 percent in 2000. Schools offering fried potatoes in their cafeterias declined, to 19 percent from 40 percent.

"

Anatomy of a school lunch -- Barriers to organic food

National School Lunch Week -- an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer outlines the challenges to school lunch programs trying to serve healthier, more local food:

Many barriers keep organic food out of school lunches by Jennifer Langston

. . .

The ingredients in this single school lunch of nachos served in September traveled more than 7,500 highway miles before reaching a cafeteria tray in Seattle.

The beef came from California ranches by way of a federal program that provides commodity items to schools at no cost. Tomatoes ripened in the San Joaquin Valley. Beans likely traveled from Minnesota or North Dakota.

Those items could have been bought from farms in our backyard, but weren't.

more

National School Lunch Week

The School Nutrition Association website has all sorts of activities and promotional materials (like the Vote for School Lunch banner shown here).

The USDA is in on it too.  From the USDA news release:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2007 — Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner today marked the opening of National School Lunch Week, highlighting local school wellness and school nutrition through the President's HealthierUS School Challenge. On Wednesday, October 17, Secretary Conner will travel to celebrate with students at Neabsco Elementary School Woodbridge, Virginia.

"Our schools are taking on the HealthierUS School Challenge, and combined with local wellness policies, have raised students' awareness of healthy nutrition," Conner said. "Agriculture offers healthy food choices as an important start to the day, while USDA provides nutritious snack, school breakfast and school lunch opportunities for many of these children."

Food Fussiness may be inherited

This explains a lot. AP article by Maria Cheng

LONDON -- Having trouble persuading your child to eat broccoli or spinach? You may have only yourself to blame.

According to a study of twins, neophobia -- or the fear of new foods -- is mostly in the genes.

"Children could actually blame their mothers for this," said Jane Wardle, director of the Health Behavior Unit at University College London, one of the authors of the study in this month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Wardle and colleagues asked the parents of 5,390 pairs of identical and non-identical twins to complete a questionnaire on their children's' willingness to try new foods.

more

Junk food as human rights issue

A black market in junk food has evidently arisen in a Canadian high school after a provincial wellness policy banned junk food from the school.

Last week, Free Press reporter Nick Martin discovered a burgeoning black market in the halls of Kelvin. Some students, outraged because a tough new WSD policy forbids the sale of junk food, were dealing candy and pop out of their lockers.

The junk food policy, part of an overall provincial nutrition drive, was put into effect to combat obesity and lifestyle-related health issues. School vending machines have been stripped of chips, candy and soft drinks. They've been replaced with healthier choices like milk and juice.

Winnipeg Free Press: Kelvin students run 'black market' in sweet treats, by Nick Martin

Winnipeg Free Press columnist Lindor Reynolds, Junk food as human rights issue? Come on!

 

Ban on Food in Classrooms -- Un-American?

A new districtwide policy in Huntington, NY, prohibits food in school classrooms.  Period.  Parents had mixed reactions.  Here is an excerpt from an article on Newsday.com, Parents divided over ban on food in classrooms, by Jennifer Sinco Kelleher:

Some parents said they should be allowed to bring healthy snacks, such as fruit platters, to celebrations. Others said the rule is unfair, pointing to a vending machine in the cafeteria that sells snacks including granola bars and popcorn.

"It's un-American," said Donna O'Beirne, a mother of two, standing with a group near a table offering standard PTA fare of cookies and pound cake. "You can't even bring in broccoli for a birthday."

On the other hand:

Allison Conner-Harewood said the policy will help reinforce healthy eating habits at home. She said it can be frustrating when her sixth-grade daughter comes home with a bag full of candy after a school holiday party.

"It helps me in my household so I don't look like the bad person," she said.

Read the whole article

"De facto" standard against sugary beverages in schools

The other ABA (the American Beverage Association) says it will not oppose proposed new standards prohibiting sugared soft drink sales in schools. From WebMD:

Major soft drink manufacturers agreed last spring to a voluntary deal that takes sugared sodas and other drinks out of elementary and middle schools. But for years it has opposed efforts to make new standards part of national law.

The industry is no longer opposing a new national standard, said Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association, the trade group representing Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and other drink makers. The reason for the shift, she suggested, is that the nutritional requirements are unlikely to be much stricter than voluntary standards already endorsed by the industry.

“We are moving full-caloried soft drinks out of the nation’s schools,” Neely told reporters at a forum on the new proposals Friday. “It is basically a de facto national standard.”

WebMd article by Todd Zwillich
American Beverage Association ad campaign

Two Angry Moms -- Documentary on School Lunches

Today is back-to-school day in my household (except for the high school kid -- Freshmen only today), so it's also back to school lunches.  A recent documentary focuses on the quality of school lunches:

Documentary chronicles moms' fight for healthier school lunches

AP article by Lisa Chamoff

WESTON, Conn. - In Amy Kalafa's ideal world, the processed pizzas and chicken nuggets normally found in school cafeterias would be replaced with meals made from scratch, and fruits and vegetables grown by local farmers or students.

While working on a documentary, Kalafa, a Weston resident and veteran independent filmmaker, learned it happens in some parts of the country.

But in most others, bags of chips, cookies and snack cakes sit tantalizingly in bins at the end of the lunch line, and most of the meals arrive frozen in the kitchens.

Read more

Kids prefer McDonald's

Kids prefer food that comes in a McDonald's wrapper, according to a recent study, even if it's the same as the food in a plain wrapper.

"Told they were playing a food-tasting game, the kids sat at a table with a screen across the middle. A researcher reached around either side of the screen to put out two identical food samples: slices of a hamburger, french fries, chicken nuggets, milk, or baby carrots.

The only difference between the pairs of food samples was that one came in a plain wrapper, cup, or bag, and the other came in a clean, unused McDonald's wrapper, cup, or bag. The kids were asked whether they liked one of the foods best, or whether they tasted the same.

In all cases, the majority of the kids said the "best" foods were those linked to the McDonald's brand, even though the only differences between the bags were the McDonald's logos (no special advertising materials were used). " -- CBS News/ WebMD

The preference for brand-name foods even applied to carrots.  Read the CBS News article.

Kids resist healthy eating efforts

This one is kind of depressing. An Associated Press article by Martha Mendoza says that nutrition education efforts aren't working.

PANORAMA CITY, Calif. -- The federal government will spend more than $1 billion this year on nutrition education -- fresh carrot and celery snacks, videos of dancing fruit, hundreds of hours of lively lessons about how great you will feel if you eat well.

But an Associated Press review of scientific studies examining 57 such programs found mostly failure. Just four showed any real success in changing the way children eat -- or any promise as weapons against the growing epidemic of childhood obesity. . . .

The results have been disappointing :

Last year a major federal pilot program offering free fruits and vegetables to school children showed fifth-graders became less willing to eat them than they had been at the start. Apparently they didn't like the taste.

Read the AP article in the Boston Globe

Oregon Considering Banning Junk Food from Schools

The Oregon legislature is considering a bill that would require school foods to be healthy, but the measure is controversial. 

We're teenagers. We don't want healthy food," explained Kaleb Lewis, a junior at Portland's Cleveland High School.

The debate is triggered by House Bill 2650, which would cap the amount of fat, sugar and calories for food sold in schools. A House subcommittee took up the measure, the third attempt in three sessions to target junk food in schools.

According to a dietician interviewed for the Oregonian article, at least 10 states have already adopted such legislation.

This is where nutritional information passes through policy on the way to becoming law.  Why cap the amount of fat?  What if the information we have about fat is wrong?  What if the information we have about fat is old and outdated?  What if Atkins is right?  What about almonds?  Could a snack be more healthy than almonds?  Here's what the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has to say about almonds:

Almonds have high levels of unsaturated fatty acids, which make up 93% of their total fat content. The most important if these is oleic acid. Frequent consumption of this helps to reduce levels of cholesterol in general and "bad" or LDL cholesterol, while building up "good" or HDL cholesterol. Being a foodstuff of vegetable origin, almonds do not contain cholesterol.

Due to their high vitamin E content, almonds provide an extra dose of antioxidants, playing an important part in the prevention of coronary illness and cancer. A 30g portion of almonds provides 50% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin E. They also contain vitamin B6 in smaller amounts.

Almonds have the highest fibre content of any tree nut, which is important in facilitating and regulating colon transit, so avoiding constipation and preventing cardiovascular illness.
Almonds are an important source of minerals such as calcium, necessary for the formation and maintenance of bones and teeth, magnesium, potassium, copper, phosphorus and zinc.

Kids Affect Parents' Food Choices

Adult Fat Intake Associated with the Presence of Children in Households: Findings from NHANES III , an article published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, reports that adults living with children eat about the same calories as adults living without children, but more of the calories come from fat.  Families with children, it seems, eat more junk food and pizza. 

Baltimore Sun article on the report.

Cutting Salt in Kids' Diets Reduces Blood Pressure

Link: Cutting Salt in Kids' Diets Reduces Blood Pressure

A new study shows that reducing salt intake in children quickly lowers their blood pressure. If their blood pressure remains lower, those kids could experience lower rates of heart attacks and strokes as they age. But according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), makers of popular packaged and restaurant foods make it virtually impossible for children not to consume unhealthy levels of salt if they eat them.

British Plan to Shield Kids from Junk Food Ads Better than US Approach

Link: British Plan to Shield Kids from Junk Food Ads Better than US Approach

While officials at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington are merely observing the debate over junk-food marketing aimed at kids, British regulators are actually doing something about it. The Office of Communications (Ofcom), the quasi-governmental agency that has statutory authority to regulate...