I was recently in touch with a mom who works regularly in the school store at her kids’ high school. The store sells some of the worst junk foods — Funyuns, candy, sodas, etc. — which she often sees the kids grabbing in large quantities for breakfast or lunch. But one of the ways the [...]
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The New York Times reports today on a study finding that Type 2 diabetes (previously referred to as “adult-onset” diabetes, before the current childhood obesity epidemic) “progresses more rapidly in children than in adults and is harder to treat.” Researchers don’t know why this is the case, but suspect that children’s growth and hormonal changes at [...]
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Here’s an issue I’ve been wanting to write about for a while: the way in which universal, in-class breakfast programs like the one in my district (Houston ISD), can create a conflict between two equally legitimate goals: alleviating childhood hunger and preventing childhood obesity. The National School Lunch Program allows schools to provide breakfast, but [...]
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Yesterday’s press conference held by Beef Products, Inc., attended by no less than three governors, two lieutenant governors, and the Under Secretary for Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was a masterpiece of crisis management. I’m still working my way through the raw footage – you can view it yourself in real time here. [...]
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Back in July, 2010 I wrote a post entitled “One Burger, Please, Extra Ammonia and Hold the E Coli” which described the now well-publicized beef product known as “pink slime.” The substance, which looks like this,* is produced by Beef Products, Inc., a beef processing plant in South Dakota. BPI injects a mixture of cooking oil [...]
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Two days ago, New York Times national education correspondent Sam Dillon had a front page story on the sharp increase in the number of formerly middle class households now taking advantage of free or reduced price school lunches for their children, a stark indicator of the nation’s current economic woes. I subscribe to the print edition [...]
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A recent study reported yesterday by the New York Times Well blog indicates they may be. The study, published in this week’s The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, looked at the sugary drink consumption of 7,000 fifth and eighth graders over a three-year period and its first conclusion isn’t so surprising: when schools banned only soda but not other [...]
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The New York Times has an excellent article today describing the stiff opposition of the food industry (along with some Congressional representatives of potato-producing states) against current attempts to improve school food nutrition standards. According to the report, over $5.6 million has been spent to date by lobbyists opposing the proposed school food rules to be [...]
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Well, I’m back from my week off and although I didn’t accomplish everything on my (admittedly unrealistic) to-do list, it was still a restful time. In going through the TLT archives to share interesting posts during my absence, I realized that there is seriously a LOT of stuff in there. (I suppose that’s what [...]
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For a long time now I’ve wanted to alert TLT readers to an important development — the rising price of school meals — but, frankly, out of sheer laziness that post has languished in my Drafts folder for months. Today I got the impetus I needed when the New York Times published a front section story [...]
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