medicalcondition:childhood obesity

C.D.C. Director Brenda Fitzgerald Resigns Over Tobacco Stock Conflicts
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/health/cdc-brenda-fitzgerald-resigns.html

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned on Wednesday, in the middle of the nation’s worst flu epidemic in nearly a decade, because of her troubling financial investments in tobacco and health care companies that posed potential conflicts of interest.

As the state’s public health chief, Dr. Fitzgerald made fighting childhood obesity one of her highest priorities. But she drew criticism from public health officials for accepting $1 million to pay for the program from Coca-Cola. Her program drew heavily from the soda giant’s playbook, emphasizing Coke’s contention that exercise — rather than calorie control — is key to weight loss.

#CDC #conflits_d'intérêt #tabac #santé

Trump’s New CDC Chief Championed Partnership with Coca-Cola to Solve Childhood Obesity
▻https://theintercept.com/2017/07/08/trumps-new-cdc-chief-championed-partnership-with-coca-cola-to-solve-ch

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The new chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which monitors significant public health concerns, including the impact of sugary beverages on obesity and heart disease, will be led by Brenda Fitzgerald, a Georgia physician whose signature childhood obesity project was underwritten by Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola was so fond of Fitzgerald’s approach to obesity issues that an opinion column authored by Fitzgerald is featured prominently on Coca-Cola’s website.

Public health officials around the country have made obesity a top issue of concern. The United States has the distinction of having the highest rate of childhood obesity in the world, according to a recent report from the New England Journal of Medicine. And multiple reports have found that regular consumption of sugary beverages is a leading driver of obesity, which is linked to heart disease, diabetes, kidney diseases, cancers and hypertension.

More exercise, of course, is a good thing, but the Georgia SHAPE program notably eschewed another well-known step toward healthier living: curbing sugary beverage consumption

The CDC in particular has also been targeted by Coca-Cola, which has long disclosed attempts to lobby the agency to influence public health policy.

Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know revealed that executives from Coca-Cola and the International Life Sciences Institute — an organization founded with support from Coca-Cola — had pressured the agency to partner with the soda giant and allow it to weigh in on debates over sugary soft drinks. In one particular email chain with a CDC official, a former Coca-Cola executive discussed strategies for influencing the World Health Organization’s call for greater regulation of soft drinks. The former Coca-Cola executive called the WHO’s efforts a “threat to our business,” and invited the CDC official out for dinner to further discuss ways to sway decisions at the international body. Clyde Tuggle, the former Coca-Cola executive, was included in the email chain.

#alimentation #conflits_intérêt #boissons_sucrées #obésité

Daily chart: The weight of the world | The Economist

▻http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-chart-3

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WO-THIRDS of Americans are overweight, but they underestimate the scale of the problem. The average guess from Americans responding to an Ipsos MORI poll in December estimated the portly population at just 50%. Britain is not much different, where 62% of people are over the recommended healthy weight; most think the population is slimmer, guessing that only 44% are too heavy. France, Germany and other European countries are similarly mistaken. But the biggest gaps between perception and reality are in Middle Eastern countries, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia (see chart). In general, women make better guesses than men but in India and Saudi Arabia, the outliers, men are slightly more accurate.

Concerns that the tubby tally is increasing excessively have led to actions to tackle obesity, specifically in children. The World Health Organisation held the first meeting of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity in 2014, recognising the link between obesity while young and non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and cardiovascular disease in adult life. The number of children aged 0-5 years-old who were overweight rose by a third worldwide between 1990-2013. This is forecast to soar by another 70% by 2025 if nothing is done. In England a comprehensive programme measuring children’s weight, launched in 2006, provides clear evidence of the problem there. Among children aged five in 2007, 9.6% were obese; by age 11 the proportion had jumped to 19.1%. In her annual report last month England’s chief medical officer focussed on the importance of perinatal diet and health of mothers as a key focus in tackling obesity from pre-birth through to adulthood.

#santé #obésité

Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets - The New York Times
▻http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from

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Funding from the food industry is not uncommon in scientific research. But studies suggest that the funds tend to bias findings. A recent analysis of beverage studies, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, found that those funded by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association and the sugar industry were five times more likely to find no link between sugary drinks and weight gain than studies whose authors reported no financial conflicts.

Physical activity is important and certainly helps, experts say. But studies show that exercise increases appetite, causing people to consume more calories. Exercise also expends far fewer calories than most people think. A 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola, for example, contains 140 calories and roughly 10 teaspoons of sugar. “It takes three miles of walking to offset that one can of Coke,” Dr. Popkin said.

Last week, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana announced the findings of a large new study on exercise in children that determined that lack of physical activity “is the biggest predictor of childhood obesity around the world.”

The news release contained a disclosure: “This research was funded by The Coca-Cola Company.”

Beyoncé’s Bubbly Branding Falls Flat - Marion Nestle
►http://www.foodpolitics.com/2012/12/lets-ask-marion-beyonces-bubbly-branding-falls-flat

Beyoncé will now be marketing sugar-sweetened beverages, products increasingly linked to childhood obesity, especially among minority children.

This linkage is not a coincidence. Pepsi and other makers of sugary sodas deliberately and systematically market their products to low-income, minority children.

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If Beyoncé’s mission is to inspire young people of any color to look gorgeous and rise to the top, as she has done, she is now telling them that the way to get there—and to get rich—is to drink Pepsi. This untrue suggestion is, on its own, unethical.

#alimentation #santé #obésité #publicité #afro-américains