The Unwise War Against Chocolate Milk
Jen Singer: One by one, the children trooped to our table and put their apples in front of my son. By the fourth apple, I asked Christopher–my date for “Lunch with Your Second Grader” at the local...
View ArticleOut Front in the Fight on Fat
Betsy McKay: How Portland, Maine Took a Stand Against Childhood Obesity. It Spent $3.7 Million to Rally Schools and Other Sites in the State. More Families Adopted 5-2-1-0 a Day: At Least 5 Servings of...
View ArticleLAUSD to remove chocolate, strawberry milk from schools, superintendent says
Howard Blume: Los Angeles schools will remove high-sugar chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk from their lunch and breakfast menus after food activists campaigned for the change, L.A. schools Supt....
View ArticleCombining exercise with school lessons could boost brain power
Jeannine Stein: Physical education classes may be scarce in some schools, but an activity program combined with school lessons could boost academic performance, a study finds. Research presented...
View ArticleChocolate Milk on School Menus Under Scrutiny
Raven Clabough: Does the Nanny State have no bounds? Apparently not, as even beverages are at risk. The newest example of “government knows best” can be found in public schools, where chocolate milk is...
View ArticleIll. lawmaker says raising obese kids should cost parents at tax time
Hannah Hess: An Illinois lawmaker says parents who have obese children should lose their state tax deduction. “It’s the parents’ responsibility that have obese kids,” said state Sen. Shane Cultra,...
View ArticleFood Is Political Says Outspoken Chef Alice Waters
The Wall Street Journal: According to food revolutionary Alice Waters, what we choose to eat says as much about our values as the way we vote. In an interview with WSJ’s Alan Murray, the author and...
View ArticleSkin patch could cure peanut allergy
The UK Telegraph: A revolutionary skin patch that may cure thousands of deadly peanut allergy has been developed by paediatricans. Researchers believe it presents one of the best possible ways of...
View ArticleL.A. Becomes First Big School District To Ban Chocolate Milk
Aprl Fulton: In the battle for nutrition bragging rights, Los Angeles has beat New York — at least when it comes to scratching chocolate milk and other less-healthful items from the school lunch menu....
View ArticleCDC: 1 in 4 high schoolers drink soda every day
Mike Stobbe: A new study shows one in four high school students drink soda every day — a sign fewer teens are downing the sugary drinks. The study also found teens drink water, milk and fruit juices...
View ArticleSchool Spotlight: Oregon Middle School greenhouse will supply students with...
Pamela Cotant: The locally grown movement has reached Oregon Middle School where vegetables grown over the summer in its new hoop-style greenhouse will be served to students when classes resume. “We...
View ArticleLong live the fat American Obesity may threaten life expectancy. Or maybe not
The Economist: AMERICA’S obesity epidemic is so called for a reason. Roughly one in three adults is obese. In 2008 close to 25m Americans were diabetic, according to a study published on June 25th....
View ArticleState bans unhealthy food sales in schools
Kay Lazar: Sugary soft drinks, diet sodas, and artery-clogging food will be a thing of the past at Massachusetts public school snack shops, vending machines, and a la carte cafeteria lines under rules...
View ArticleMcDonald’s to Make Nutrition Push
Melodie Warner: McDonald’s Corp. plans to promote more nutritional options, such as automatically including fruit or a low-fat dairy option in every Happy Meal. The fast-food giant said the new Happy...
View ArticleA New Tactic To Encourage Mothers To Breast-Feed
Shirley Wang: Public-health officials are shifting tactics in an effort to encourage more women to breast-feed their babies–they are pushing hospitals to change their maternity practices. The...
View ArticleSeoul School Lunch Vote to Test Sentiment on Welfare
Evan Ramstad: A municipal vote in Seoul on Wednesday over free school lunches is shaping up as a test of South Koreans’ sentiment on government welfare spending, and the outcome is expected to...
View ArticleParents of seven told: Your children are too fat, so you will never see them...
Jane Simpson: Four obese children are on the brink of being permanently removed from their family by social workers after their parents failed to bring their weight under control. In the first case of...
View ArticleThe Great Candy Debate
sp-eye: “Motivation is part of education and classroom teachers should have input because they are the ones doing the work. ” “Not all candy purchases are used for motivation.” “The question becomes do...
View ArticleAlabama public schools turn to Wii to help fight childhood obesity
Marie Leech: Ask most third-graders whether they’d rather run laps in hundred-degree temperatures or play a video game, and it doesn’t take a genius to correctly predict their answer. What did take...
View ArticleA New Law on School Fitness Data Faces Obstacles
Morgan Smith: Texas children are fat — and getting fatter. It is something state policy makers have known and have struggled to address for years. In the last decade, the Legislature has passed laws...
View ArticleDenmark taxes fatty products
Richard Orange: Denmark is to impose the world’s first “fat tax” in a drive to slim its population and cut heart disease. The move may increase pressure for a similar tax in the UK, which suffers from...
View ArticleDiet soda linked to weight gain
Edward Martin: If the FDA won’t go after diet sodas for all the dangerous chemicals they contain, maybe the FTC can take action for false advertising. There’s nothing “diet” about diet sodas. After...
View ArticleSchools rolling out new fundraisers: food truck nights
Angel Jennings: Echo Lau drove to Whitney High School on a recent Monday evening to pick up her kids. She left with dinner. The student parking lot at the Cerritos campus is transformed every week into...
View ArticleBanning Sugary Soda From School Fails to Cut Teen Consumption, Study Finds
Nicole Ostrow: Banning sugar-filled sodas from American schools as an effort to combat childhood obesity doesn’t reduce overall consumption levels of sweetened beverages, research found. In U.S. states...
View ArticleReading, Writing And Roasting: Schools Bring Cooking Back Into The Classroom
Allison Aubrey: Lots of kids have tried lentils. But what about Ethiopian-style lentils, accompanied by injera bread, couscous and cucumber salad? Fourth graders in Santa Fe, N.M. prepared this lunch...
View ArticleLife Expectancy PowerPoint
Hans Rosling: Life expectancy is a very important measure when we compare the health of different countries. However, students often misunderstand some of the characteristics of life expectancy. This...
View ArticleRecipe for a revolution in school lunches Healthful offerings like saffron...
Monica Eng: For lunch, Josh Rivera chose a plate of saffron rice, Jerusalem salad and a Greek-marinated kebab of free-range chicken raised without antibiotics. “Last year I used to get a burger and...
View ArticleHow the Food Industry Eats Your Kid’s Lunch
Lucy Komisar: An increasingly cozy alliance between companies that manufacture processed foods and companies that serve the meals is making students — a captive market — fat and sick while pulling in...
View ArticleL.A. schools’ healthful lunch menu panned by students
Teresa Watanabe: It’s lunchtime at Van Nuys High School and students stream into the cafeteria to check out the day’s fare: black bean burgers, tostada salad, fresh pears and other items on a new...
View ArticleOld-school system needs its own recess
Chris Rickert: The Janesville Gazette reported last week that principals at some of the city’s public elementary school are attributing some major positive academic and behavioral trends to a...
View ArticleAmerican school kids trash Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution
Graeme Culliford and Nick Owens: It was Jamie Oliver’s toughest challenge… getting US youngsters to ditch junk food and eat a healthier diet. But six months after he convinced an LA school to swap...
View Article‘Business as usual’ isn’t working for Madison schools
Nichelle Nichols: I am running for the Madison School Board because I care about the state of our public schools and this community. The facts are: I am employed at the Urban League of Greater Madison...
View ArticleStop Subsidizing Obesity
Mark Bittman Not long ago few doctors – not even pediatricians – concerned themselves much with nutrition. This has changed, and dramatically: As childhood obesity gains recognition as a true health...
View ArticleThe Competition Drug
Roger Cohen THIS is America’s college town par excellence. Kids from all over the world flock to Boston to learn. I have a son who is a freshman here. Last autumn, as he entered school, I listened to...
View ArticleNo Rich Child Left Behind
Sean F. Reardon Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer...
View ArticlePoverty Can Trump a Winning Hand of Genes
Alison Gopnik Changes in our environment can actually transform the relation between our traits and the outside world. We all notice that some people are smarter than others. You might naturally wonder...
View ArticleChildhood Poverty Linked to Poor Brain Development
Caroline Cassels Exposure to poverty in early childhood negatively affects brain development, but good-quality caregiving may help offset this effect, new research suggests. A longitudinal imaging...
View ArticlePoverty influences children’s early brain development
University of Wisconsin-Madison News Poverty may have direct implications for important, early steps in the development of the brain, saddling children of low-income families with slower rates of...
View ArticleReports of a Drop in Childhood Obesity Are Overblown
Mike Derer: It is no secret that the United States has a weight problem. Roughly 30 percent of American adults are clinically obese, or have a body mass index of at least 30. That’s more than 175...
View ArticleIdea of New Attention Disorder Spurs Research, and Debate
Alan Schwarz: With more than six million American children having received a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, concern has been rising that the condition is being significantly...
View ArticleReinventing School Lunches
Liz Stinson: IDEO recently took on a particularly picky client: Kids. More specifically, kids who should be eating school lunches on the regular, but weren’t. The San Francisco Unified School District...
View ArticleIn Pursuit of Knowledge, and Profit How universities aid and abet patent trolls
Daniel Engber: A few weeks ago, administrators at Penn State University did something they believed had never been attempted in American academia: The school put about 70 engineering patents up for...
View ArticleGreased palms and dried fruit
The Economist: OBESITY, according to a government-sponsored report, could make the current generation of Americans the first in history to live shorter lives than the previous one. A major change in...
View ArticlePupils on free school meals for only a year become ‘invisible underachievers’
Richard Adams: Children who qualify for free school meals for just one year become “invisible underachievers” who receive little government support but achieve similar results to those who remain on...
View ArticleFor years we’ve been telling kids to sit still and pay attention. That’s all...
Annie Murphy Paul: Today’s educational technology often presents itself as a radical departure from the tired practices of traditional instruction. But in one way, at least, it faithfully follows the...
View ArticleCan We Predict Which Teens Are Likely To Binge Drink? Maybe
Maanvi Singh: More than half of 16-year-olds in the United States have tried alcohol. While many of them learn to drink responsibly, some go on to binge on alcohol, putting themselves at risk for...
View ArticleSome districts balk at latest serving of school lunch rules
Robert Gebelhoff: Salty chips. Candy bars. Full-calorie sodas. Don’t expect to find any of this in schools anymore — not in hot lunches, not in vending machines, not even in high school snack bars....
View ArticleYum, McDonald’s bottom line shrinks as Americans eat healthier
Lisa Baertlien: Yum Brands Inc’s disappointing Pizza Hut and Taco Bell results, along with other data, suggested the U.S. fast-food business remained weak in the second quarter and that industry leader...
View ArticleWhat Happens When Second Graders Are Treated to a Seven-Course, $220 Tasting...
Jeffrey Blitz: One Saturday afternoon last month, six second graders from P.S. 295 in Brooklyn got a head start on the fine-dining life when they visited the acclaimed French restaurant Daniel. There,...
View ArticleBerkeley, a city consumed by a soda tax
Berkeleyside: On Nov. 4, Berkeley voters will show where they stand on Measure D, the so-called Soda Tax. The proposed tax on sugary beverages has been one of the most hotly debated Berkeley issues in...
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