Olympic Games and Obesity

This post from the blog of Seattle based Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition examines the ads and sponsoring around the upcoming London's Olympic Games (and athletes in general) and Seattle school policies. Another post (among many others) on the issue, and this article by Neville Rigby in The Guardian.

Can apps be advocacy tools? Can they change the labeling debate?

While researching information about the street light labeling debate I discovered that several apps (applications for smartphones) had been created in various countries to help consumers figure out what was in the food/drinks they were considering buying. The first ones I found were from Australia, Foodswitch, launched in January 2012 by the George Institute for Global Health based in Sydney and the Health Insurance group BUPA (an interesting partnership) and another one, The Traffic Light Food Tracker presented in September 2011 by the Obesity Policy Coalition based in Melbourne. I talked via Skype with Pr Bruce Neal who led the Foodswitch project: they do plan to develop similar apps for other countries/languages although he did not want to go into details at this point. I later found out about Fooducate and two French apps, GuidAlim and Proxiproduit launched in early 2010. Interestingly GuidAlim and Fooducate were developed by tech savvy individual entrepreneurs not by institutions concerned with obesity. Considering all those apps have reached and continue to reach significant number of people it would be worth considering what their impact is, can be. Can the app be a game changer in the debate about labeling? After all the app provides the info the industry does not want to share and the government does not dare mandating. Can such apps be used effectively by the people and communities who most need it? Can such apps become potent advocacy tools? Are the US based advocacy groups thinking about those issues?

Recent TV programs about obesity in the US, the UK and France

The Weight of A Nation was aired in May 14/15 on HBO. It's interesting and a little worrying to look at the stats of viewers on YouTube: 1.5 million saw the trailer, 105K watched the first part, 48K the second part, 34K part 3 (devoted to children), 24K part 4. Diminishing audience...
The men who made us fat is a BBC2 documentary by Jacques Peretti aired in June but unfortunately it is not available (for now?) in the US. Parts are available on YouTube. Now (July 20) the 12 episodes are available :)
A French documentary Les Alimenteurs was aired on June 10 on France 5 channel. Maybe available in dvd later? Practice your French and learn about the issues in France.
It is interesting to see 3 different programs on the obesity epidemic aired in 3 different countries at the same time: a common concern, dans l'air du temps...

Yale Rudd Center Podcasts

Kelly Brownell has interviewed many experts and you can find the podcasts on one page of their site.
I would suggest a more detailed presentation (including a picture of the guest and a résumé of the talk), a better search feature, a guest list on the side (with direct link to the relevant podcast), etc.
Now the podcasts are sort of hidden.

The Mountain Dew story

This is but one very small part of the Mountain Dew story. The reality is that Mountain Dew is a very toxic beverage as it is consumed in big quantities and not as Pepsi Co would like us to believe as a small part of an otherwise healthy diet. I did try to contact the dentist mentioned in the story but never received an answer. If you google Mountain Dew and health you find horror stories after horror stories and always the same argument by Pepsi Co. Here on YouTube.

Harassing Marion Nestle

Even if she takes it lightly, today's post in Marion Nestle's Food Politics is an example of legal harassment by Coca Cola's lawyers. Marion is so used to it she dismisses it with humor but it is also a reminder of how Big Food tries to intimidate and silence health advocates

About cavities: my aha moment

My interest in obesity control really started as an interest for cavity control sparked by Catherine Saint Louis article in the NYT on March 6.

The American Cancer Society requests a Surgeon General's Report about sugary beverages

On July 3d the ACS Cancer Action Network requested a Surgeon General's Report about sugary drinks. As Fooducate noted on July 9th, this could be a sign that the advocacy movement is getting firmer. The SG' reports about tobacco and health were instrumental in keeping the pressure on the tobacco industry.

The screaming test: when it hurts, the industry protests.

It is worth noting how the industry reacted to Kelly Brownells call for more regulation, as quoted in the LA Times on July 3.

Kelly Brownell: Thinking forward, the quicksand of appeasing the food industry

A key article by Kelly Brownell.

PLOS medicine series about Big Food

Starting June 8 PLOS (Public Library Of Science) commissions 8 articles about Big Food.

An interesting initiative involving chefs about the US farm bill

Read the article

We must focus on preventing disease

An opinion piece in The Atlantic by Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Control de la obesidad: Gordo problema

A post published  today about obesity on the blog in Spanish of Elmer Huerta: Cuida tu Salud.
Elmer also has a radio and a TV program in Spanish.

Smash your food: an app for children and youth

Smash your food is an app designed to help children and adolescents make healthy food choices.

in Grist, a critical opinion of Weight of the Nation

Basically there is not enough emphasis on the policy/political roots of the problem.
read on Grist.

War On Smoking Offers Some Lessons For Obesity Fight

From this interesting article by Judith Graham of Kaiser Health News, published on May 4th in USA Today. There is a clear difference between those who are ready to confront the industry and those who prefer to try to work with the industry.The confrontational advocates need to organize the same way the tobacco control advocates did, including coalitions like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Interestingly the titles of Judith's article differ in USA Today and KHN. I also notice that while she used the term war for tobacco, she used fight for obesity. There is a significant difference between a war and a fight and that's where the obesity control movement is: they have to progress from a fight (or a series of fights) to a war. As for USA today their title is much more diluted:
"Obesity fight needs ambitious campaign, health leaders say". This is much less than calling (and organizing) for a war.
Stan Glantz's assessment is key:

"When I look at what’s going on with obesity, it reminds me of what was going on with tobacco in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, when there was a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility, voluntary self-regulation, and trying to make safe cigarettes," said Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.

That approach didn’t work, and efforts to reduce smoking didn’t really have much success until advocates shifted their emphasis from changing individual behavior to community-based activism and holding cigarette manufacturers accountable for harmful products, Glantz said.

A similar shift is needed today in the fight against America’s expanding waistlines, many experts believe. Instead of approaching obesity as a personal issue, it needs to be redefined as a community challenge that calls for collective action and wide-ranging policy changes such as more informative food labels, limits on marketing to children, and taxes on unhealthy products, they argue.

Why this blog?

I started this blog after I read the article published in the NYT by Catherine Saint Louis in March 2012 about young children having oral surgery because of too many cavities (caused by soft drinks without adequate oral hygiene).
My involvement in tobacco control had similarly been triggered by an article in the press, about secondhand smoke.
As much as I had been aware of the growing number of obese people (and children), this article was a real shocker: it illustrated how bad and costly the situation was.
When I started collecting background information I was immediately fascinated by the similarities between the Big Food/Big Soda arguments and the ones used by Big Tobacco.
The strategies were identical and often they relied on the same PR spinmasters to try confusing the public.
After 25+ years in tobacco control I was/still am in a transition phase and mood but still not sure where to go. Considering the similarities between the industries tactics I think my long experience at organizing tobacco control advocacy could prove valuable to organize the nascent obesity control movement.
The fight against obesity has been going on for many years so I could understand that many people involved would be shocked that I label it as "nascent" but from an organizational point of view and if one compares it with the tobacco control movement, one can see it is much less structured.
In that context I think I can contribute to develop tools and campaigns that would help build a more effective advocacy oriented organization than what exists now.
As I see it there are many active groups and individuals but there is still a lack of coordination, a lack of organizing to bring the issues, the campaigns to a much higher level.
If you are interested, contact me: philippeboucher2 at gmail.com

Why this strange domain name/url? ccofk?

CCOFK is for Campaign for Cavities and Obesity Free Kids! I know it's a very bad url/domain name but once I had started to use BlogSpot I did not have the courage to change it and until now I have not decided to buy a simpler and better domain name. Thank you for bearing with me.
Of course the name is a reference to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids... From Tobacco Control to Obesity Control came later.

Preschoolers in surgery for a mouthful of cavities

A key article by Catherine Saint Louis, published in the New York Times on March 6, 2012.