On the right, we see the dietary icon introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture in the summer of 2011 as part of the national effort toward controlling childhood obesity. The unveiling was conducted by the Secretary of Agriculture and, …

It’s a traditional American cliché — “Thar’s gold in them thar hills!” There certainly is gold in the mountains of fat that encumber so many people, as proven by billionaire Sara Blakely, the inventor of Spanx shapewear. A lengthy profile of the billi …

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has been around since 1985, and its founder, Neal Barnard, is still active and articulate. He would like to see milk and all its relatives kicked out of school cafeterias, and that includes grill …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at the effect of various government policies and initiatives, mainly the Let’s Move! program headed by Michelle Obama. There are many different interests to be served, and each involved party has its own unique a …

Childhood Obesity News has been considering an award-winning piece of journalism by Duff Wilson and Janet Roberts of Reuters, titled “Special Report: How Washington went soft on childhood obesity,” and what other experts thought of it. The report itsel …

Last week, Childhood Obesity News was exploring some of the aspects of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program, which people have complained about for various reasons. Although the Farmers’ Market Promotion Program drew some complaints for passing out $10 …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News mentioned the Farmers’ Market Promotion Program (FMPP), a government bureaucracy designed to pass out federal money to programs that promote farmers’ markets, roadside fruit stands, and other such vending sites. It has …

One side effect of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program has been a revival of interest in farmers’ markets, both as a counter-force to the “food desert” problem and a general expression of a wish for fresh food on the part of the general population. Fo …

One of the interesting outcomes of Let’s Move! was the promise extracted from major national food corporations to remove 1.5 trillion calories from the American diet. Really? How on Earth could a thing like that be measured? Only if the root cause were …

Childhood Obesity News discussed the publication of Mrs. Obama’s book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, which received a lot of publicity when it first became available, and continues to do so. Jus …

George Ball used to be president of the American Horticultural Society and, back in the day, he initiated a gardening program for children and hosted an annual community garden symposium. He would happily see neighborhood groups, community centers, sch …

As practically everyone in the world knows, Michelle Obama has been making good use of the respect and attention that accrues to her by virtue of being the president’s wife to champion the anti-obesity cause. For reasons of public relations, the admini …

(Note: Since a few days ago, the blog Obama Foodorama was changed to be accessible to invited readers only.) There are people who keep very close track of Let’s Move! Two of them are Eddie Gehman Kohan and Marian Burros, who write for a website called …

About a year ago, Dr. Judith S. Palfrey was appointed to lead Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to fight childhood obesity. The former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics became the new executive director of Let’s Move! Emmarie Huettema …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at various aspects of Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move! project, which rests on four basic notions: 1. Parents need to be educated and empowered. 2. Schools need to do their best to bring in nourishing food and keep junk …

Among the critics of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program, which was intended to reduce childhood obesity, many have complained that it puts too much emphasis on nutrition. In fact, nutrition, informed three out of four of the basic tenets of Let’s Mov …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at some of the pros and cons of the “food desert” doctrine, one of the bases of the Let’s Move! program sponsored by presidential wife Michelle Obama. Her detractors deny the existence of food deserts. But many …

Who would have guessed there would be so much to discover about food deserts? And so much to disagree about. Especially when the term only came into public consciousness in relatively recent years. Americans are now so familiar with it because of First …

Two major questions are involved. The first, as been discussed extensively by Childhood Obesity News — if there are such things as food deserts, does their existence impact childhood obesity one way or another? The branching sub-questions attached to …

Ever since first lady Michelle Obama introduced the concept of the food desert, there have been grumblings, as Childhood Obesity News noted yesterday. Earlier this year, the grumblings flared up into something of a brushfire when The New York Times pub …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at the concept of the food desert, as publicized by Michelle Obama and the Let’s Move! program. Many critics were and are full of scorn for the very idea. Diane Medved wrote a particularly stern essay, “Veggies …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at the history of the Let’s Move! program initiated and promoted by First Lady Michelle Obama, as it has unfolded over the last couple of years. It announced four objectives: to educate and empower parents, provi …

Yesterday we saw how, as a cultural ambassador, Mrs. Obama carried her Let’s Move! message to London for the Olympics. It’s an American tradition for the First Lady to pick a cause and lend it every ounce of clout she possesses while her husband is in …

One American contribution to the London Olympics was the presence of First Lady Michelle Obama, who headed the presidential delegation to the events. She also appeared before 1,000 schoolchildren for a Let’s Move! event. As Rajiv Narayan points out, th …

Not long ago, Dr. Pretlow was asked a series of questions by a young student whose area of interest is the impact of childhood obesity on the overall development of a child. Quite logically, she first inquired about the leading cause of obesity today, …

Any day now, in the face of rampant and ever-growing obesity among both children and adults in America, a retail establishment called Sugar and Plumm Purveyors of Yumm will open in New York City’s upper West Side. People who live in the area have been …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned the negative attention garnered by fast-food corporate sponsorship of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Britain’s Academy of Medical Royal Colleges expressed disapproval, and so did cardiologist Dr. Aseem Mal …

A week before the 2012 Olympic Games began, the esteemed British publication The Lancet published an editorial regretting the ubiquitous presence of fast food corporations. Apparently, Coca-Cola now owns the ancient and venerated custom of the torch re …

F as in Fat, the exhaustive report published by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, tells us that children need to keep moving — for all kinds of reasons directly or indirectly connected with childhood obesity (PDF). …

Childhood Obesity News has looked at many angles of the PE-in-schools debate. In some places, they’re trying to get more of it, in others, to reduce the amount they already have. And nobody seems able to prove incontrovertibly that it does anything to …