Tag Archives: nutrition

Pa. bill would require disclosure of food stamp purchases

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Felice Freyer

About Felice Freyer

Felice J. Freyer is a member of AHCJ's board of directors, serving as co-chair of the organization's Right to Know Committee.

Food stamps

Photo by cosmocatalano via Flickr

A Pennsylvania congressman last week filed a bill that would require retailers to report which items are bought with food stamps.

The proposed “SNAP Transparency Act,” sponsored by Republican Rep. Tom Marino, would require the secretary of agriculture to establish a uniform reporting system under which retailers would track “the complete range, identities, sizes, quantities, and costs of particular food items” purchased with benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.

If passed, the legislation could give journalists and advocates access to long-sought information about the food purchases of SNAP recipients, at a time of growing concern about their access to healthy foods and about obesity and related health problems among the poor. Currently the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not have the authority to collect such information.

The act would address one of two issues raised in a recent letter to Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack from AHCJ and six other organizations representing journalists and open-government advocates. Continue reading →

Experts stress lifestyle changes as prevention, treatment for diabetes #ahcj13

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Diabetes is prevalent in the United States, and the numbers continue to balloon.

In a Health Journalism 2013 session focusing on type 2 diabetes, a panel of experts discussed the threats of the disease, its growth and possible treatment. The panel was moderated by Tennesseean reporter Tom Wilemon.

Rich Siegel, M.D., co-director of Tufts Medical Center’s Diabetes Clinic, said that the threats of diabetes and obesity – or “diabesity” – in adolescents and young adults is a 21st century time bomb. According to a 2012 study from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, diabetes among adolescents rose 23 percent from 2000 to 2008.

Siegel said the keys to combating type 2 diabetes are diet, activity and education. Medication plays a role, with both injectable and oral medication available. He added that, after 90 years of use, insulin is still the most effective treatment. Surgery can even be an option, but not a first option.

“The idea of surgery is towards the bottom of the list,” Siegel said.

David M. Nathan, M.D., director of the MGH Diabetes Center and Clinical Research Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, cited a 2012 Centers for Disease control study showing that 26 million people in the United States have diabetes, a majority of them with type 2 diabetes. This is about 8 percent of the population. He added that nearly 2 million cases are diagnosed a year and 72 million American are pre-diabetic. According to an American Diabetes Association, $245 billion is spent every year on the disease.

In treating type 2 diabetes, Nathan stressed the importance of treating for the long haul, focusing on prevention and avoiding complications down the road. He cited a Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study that showed that lifestyle changes reduced the development of type 2 diabetes by 58 percent, more than medication or a placebo.

Osama Hamdy, M.D., Ph.D., the medical director of Joslin’s Obesity Clinical Program and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, estimated that the cost to treat diabetes will reach half a trillion dollars in the next 12 years. He also suggested lifestyle intervention for diabetes prevention and treatment.

Reuters explains Big Food’s remarkable lobbying success

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Andrew Van Dam

About Andrew Van Dam

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism, and he has blogged for Covering Health ever since.

Investigating for Reuters, Duff Wilson and Janet Roberts analyzed lobbying records and found that, in the past few years, the food industry has dramatically stepped up its spending in Washington and, they write, “largely dominated policymaking – pledging voluntary action while defeating government proposals aimed at changing the nation’s diet.” They give examples.


After aggressive lobbying, Congress declared pizza a vegetable to protect it from a nutritional overhaul of the school lunch program this year. The White House kept silent last year as Congress killed a plan by four federal agencies to reduce sugar, salt and fat in food marketed to children.

And during the past two years, each of the 24 states and five cities that considered “soda taxes” to discourage consumption of sugary drinks has seen the efforts dropped or defeated.

At every level of government, the food and beverage industries won fight after fight during the last decade. They have never lost a significant political battle in the United States despite mounting scientific evidence of the role of unhealthy food and children’s marketing in obesity.

That success has come through what the authors imply is a sort of big-tobacco model, in which the industry combines promises of self-regulation with huge amounts of money, and thus creates an irresistible package for lawmakers. For a blow-by-blow on how the lobbying muscle swayed the decision-makers in recent battles, I strongly recommend you read the full piece, which draws heavily from both data and extensive interviews. Particularly interesting? The examples of how the Citizens United decision has impacted far more than just election politics.

Battle against childhood obesity is complicated

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Andrew Van Dam

About Andrew Van Dam

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism, and he has blogged for Covering Health ever since.

Maureen O’Hagan and her colleagues at The Seattle Times have put together a sprawling package of stories on the fight against childhood obesity in their new series, “Feeling the Weight.” We’ll break it down story-by-story.

Kids battle the lure of junk food
Local agencies are spending millions to provide healthy alternatives to Seattle-area youth, but they — to say nothing of the youth themselves — are faced with a seemingly insurmountable deluge of tasty treats that tempt teens at every turn.

State still seeks winning strategy against childhood obesity
For a decade, Washington’s anti-obesity strategy has focused on providing kids with access to health alternatives.

So far, the results are discouraging. A push to put more fresh produce in poor neighborhoods’ corner stores, for instance, is struggling. And recent studies suggest the proliferation of farmers markets has done little to change diets or behavior. The number of overweight and obese kids continues to climb.

In other words, we might be spending a whole lot of money on efforts that miss the mark.

How to help your kids lose weight healthfully
The trick, she writes, is to focus on healthy behavior rather than on weight loss.

Parents stand between kids and junk food
O’Hagan’s profiles of parents of obese children shatter a few stereotypes and illustrate just how complex the issue is.

What readers had to say about childhood-obesity topic
Readers weighed in with advice, criticism, observations and more.

Related

Covering Obesity: A Guide for Reporters

Covering ObesityThe prospect of covering such a broad, engaging and important topic as obesity can be overwhelming. This guide, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is designed to help journalists cover a wide range of stories, whether writing on deadline or researching a multipart series. It offers assistance on calculating body mass index, finding obesity statistics on the state level, gauging the quality of school district wellness policies, finding innovative school nutrition policies and much more.

Series brings readers’ perspectives to obesity story

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Andrew Van Dam

About Andrew Van Dam

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism, and he has blogged for Covering Health ever since.

Weight loss and obesity stories are a pillar of health journalism and a flashpoint for reader interest, but they have been so thoroughly covered by local and national stories that they generally only hit the headlines when new treatments or alarming obesity statistics bubble up to the fore.

ozPhoto by bookgrl via Flickr

With that in mind, we bring you The (Raleigh, N.C.,) News & Observer‘s “Frontiers of Fat” series, which brings together the personal weight-loss perspectives of readers and reporters and up-to-date reporting that explores the current state of nutrition research. By adding local voices and centering the whole thing around a New Year’s Day kickoff, the newspaper created a way to get back to the fundamentals of the nutrition discussion while still creating something newsworthy and relevant.

Speaking of relevance, the newspaper is keeping momentum of the series going with updates on both its staff and reader-contributed weight loss blogs, accompanied by timely yet context-rich news stories. On the landing page, the updates are accompanied by interactive components like a calorie counter and a BMI calculator.

The series also snagged Associated Press Managing Editor’s Innovator of the Month honors for March.

Health series tries to reach those often left out

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Pia Christensen

About Pia Christensen

Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates social media efforts of AHCJ and assists with the editing and production of association guides, programs and newsletters.

Kate Dailey of Newsweek has teamed up with Public Radio International for a 10-part series, “DIY Checkup: Taking Control of Our Health.” The project looks at “what people can do to live better, no matter their genetics, history, or economic status.”

Dailey, in a blog post about the series, recognizes that some of the standard pieces of advice, such as going to the gym for exercise or eating fresh fruits and vegetables, are not relevant for significant parts of the population. People who work on their feet all day and people who live in food deserts are not getting the messages in a way that make them relevant to their lives.

As Dailey says, “the language that doctors and journalists often use to talk about personal health often leaves many people out.”

Part one of the series lists things people can do to significantly improve their health. Listen to part one:

Food makes up a quarter of Calif. household waste

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Pia Christensen

About Pia Christensen

Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates social media efforts of AHCJ and assists with the editing and production of association guides, programs and newsletters.

California Watch wraps up its three-part series on hunger in that state with a look at how much food is wasted and why.

Reporters found that tons of food goes to waste when restaurants dump it rather than donate it to distribution centers, when farmers plow over fruits and and vegetables in the fields and when grocery stores throw away food.

Discarded food represents a quarter of all waste tossed away by California households.

The project, in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC, includes a look at the five largest food retailers and whether they donate to food banks and other distribution centers.

AHCJ speaker writes about physiology of eating

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Andrew Van Dam

About Andrew Van Dam

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism, and he has blogged for Covering Health ever since.

The New York Times‘s Tara Parker-Pope reviewed former FDA chief Dr. David Kessler’s new book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. In it, Kessler seems to paint Americans as victims of a carefully calibrated gustatory assault, explaining that the food industry has perfected the art of creating food that “taps into our brain circuitry and stimulates our desire for more.” Though he did not write a diet book, Parker-Pope says, Kessler does try to help folks enter “food rehab,” where they can use their new awareness of food science to “take back control of our eating habits.”

Kessler will be a spotlight speaker at AHCJ’s Aging in the 21st Century Workshop, set for Oct. 16 and 17 in Miami. Tapping into the expertise and understanding of human psychology and physiology he showed in his book, Kessler will discuss nutrition and aging at the workshop.

Vegetables, healthy food on Obama agenda

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Andrew Van Dam

About Andrew Van Dam

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism, and he has blogged for Covering Health ever since.

In yet another break with the Bush family legacy, the Obamas, led by matriarch Michelle, have embraced broccoli and other local greens and encourage others to do the same. New York Times reporter Rachel L. Swarns chronicled the pro-vegetable, pro-local eating agenda of the first family. Swarns leads with the First Lady praising a local soup kitchen’s steamed broccoli and homemade mushroom risotto, then digs deeper into her struggles to promote a healthy agenda both around the country and around her own dinner table.

White House officials say the focus on healthy living will be a significant item on Mrs. Obama’s agenda, which already includes supporting working families and military spouses. As the nation battles an obesity epidemic and a hard-to-break taste for oversweetened and oversalted dishes, her message is clear: Fresh, nutritious foods are not delicacies to be savored by the wealthy, but critical components of the diets of ordinary and struggling families.

Some healthy-eating advocates want the Obamas to go even further, Swarn found.

(Gourmet magazine Editor Ruth) Reichl would like the White House kitchen to issue regular news releases that describe what the first couple and their daughters are eating. (Then parents across the country could tell their children, “You know, Malia and Sasha were eating salad yesterday. …”)

Mercury may lurk in high fructose corn syrup

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Andrew Van Dam

About Andrew Van Dam

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism, and he has blogged for Covering Health ever since.

In the Columbia Daily Tribune, dietitian and columnist Melinda Hemmelgarn discusses a 2005 study recently published in Environmental Health in which researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine out of 20 samples of high fructose corn syrup.

Hemmelgarn says the neurotoxin get into high fructose corn syrup when “processors use mercury-grade caustic soda to separate corn starch from the corn kernel.” Most processing plants now use mercury-free technologies, she said, but consumers have no way to distinguish between syrup made with mercury and syrup made without it.

Renee Dufault, who directed the 2005 study, said her findings were ignored by the FDA and, until this January, unpublished by scientific journals. According to Dufault, the Corn Refiners Association called the study outdated, saying that they haven’t used mercury in syrup production for years.

Dufault responds by pointing to a 2008 small-scale regional study conducted by the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy that tested 55 consumer products containing significant amounts of high fructose corn syrup and found mercury in almost a third of them.

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