The Soda Ad That Didn't Make It

Will Recession Undermine Gain for Kids?

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health (LPFCH) released the very first Index measuring the health and well-being of California children today. This Index – similar to the Dow Jones or Consumer Price Index – offers valuable information about children’s overall health and well-being over the past decade and gives us a benchmark to measure future change.

In general the Index shows a decade of improvement in children’s health throughout the entire state with one glaring exception – family economics. In light of the present recession, Index authors caution that all those gains may be erased.

It’s an impressive study that shows substantial facts about how our children fare. In addition, I recommend you check out kidsdata.org. This newly expanded Web site is your go-to source when it comes to children’s health. It covers all counties in California and many cities and school districts. You’ll find information on 250 indicators ranging from health care to unemployment.

Less Sugar in Kids' Cereal

Good news . . . General Mills is lowering the sugar content in several of the cereals they market to kids. Though they’re not cutting the sugar in all of the cereals popular with kids, it’s a good start. Maybe at some future date they’ll see fit to reduce the sugar in all their cereals to a more acceptable level. More good news is that General Mills has also stated that they will not use artificial sweeteners in place of the sugar. Our children don’t need to ingest any more harmful chemicals.

Some “experts” don’t think this is a “big deal,” but if the breakfast food industry continues to take these small steps, over time their actions will result in major changes in the contents of breakfast cereals and how they are marketed to children. Kids might even come to prefer cereals that are less sweet. And in time, this slow and steady progress will bring a healthier product to the breakfast table.

Additionally, the Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity says that kids who eat cereals high in sugar consume twice as much as those who eat low-sugar products. Portion size is another positive step in helping to curb the obesity epidemic we’re experiencing in this country. All in all, General Mills is taking a step in the right direction. We just need to see more of these steps in the future.

Sharron

Sugar Shock

The holiday season is in full swing and many of us are tempted by the sweet treats lying around the office, at home or in the shops. While the smell of baked goodies, chocolates, candy and holiday drinks is deliciously enticing, it’s a somber reminder that almost 8 percent of Americans have diabetes. That’s nearly 24 million people, ages 20 or older, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Shockingly, double that number, 57 million people, have prediabetes where blood sugar levels are high. While it’s nearly impossible to stay away from sugary treats during the holiday season, making small changes can balance things out. Find a parking space a little further out, grab an apple on your way out the door, sip on water to keep hydrated. Need more tips on ways to prevent and manage diabetes? click here.

~ Muriel

One Stop Researching

One of my greatest hurdles with the Internet is that there is too much information floating around and no organization to it. I constantly get lost whenever I'm searching for a topic or doing research and spend more time bookmarking websites than gathering facts.

The Lucile Packard Foundation has made access to important information much easier as it expanded its website kidsdata.org statewide. The comprehensive website shares data on the health and well being of children in California, offering data for all counties, cities and school districts -- nearly 1,600 regions.

Some great facts about kidsdata.org:

Kidsdata.org offers more than 300 continuously updated measures of child well being. Data from more than 35 reliable public sources, such as the U.S. Census, the California Department of Education and the California Department of Public Health, are available at your fingertips.

User-friendly, customizable displays on kidsdata.org - maps, and tables, and bar, pie and trend graphs -- make it easy to document how kids are faring in news and feature stories.

New features on kidsdata.org allow you to share data by creating PDFs, downloading data into Excel, and adding charts and graphs to Word documents or PowerPoint slides.

-Tasha

What’s a Bigger Threat - a Terrorist or a Bug?

While al-Qa'ida and the Taliban are grabbing all the headlines, there is a bigger threat to all of us, and it’s costing us billions of dollars, polluting our environment with more pesticides and even costing lives. It’s invasive pests, insects and diseases imported here from other parts of the world - West Nile fever, Asian tiger mosquito, gypsy moth, Japanese dodder, light brown apple moth and the list goes on and on.

In California alone it is expected that 10 new pests will be introduced each year from 2010 to 2020. And each one will have the potential to devastate crops and spread diseases. This means that the cost to produce all the food you buy at the supermarket will go up. Your neighbors who have gardens will be spraying more pesticides to protect their plants. You might also have to start spraying pesticides to protect your yard and keep it looking nice. (Or you could just let the bugs eat it all.)

Unfortunately, most of the pests come in because we bring them in. People who try to sneak some fruits or plants in or bypass border and customs inspections when they travel can bring the pests in. Even traveling within the U.S. can move natural pests from an area where it belongs to somewhere it doesn’t and wreak havoc in the process.

And what happens when these pests arrive and are discovered in someone's backyard? Government officials move into action and set up eradication efforts. However, some well-meaning yet short-sighted people have stopped eradication efforts for some of the pests. This has resulted in devastated crops, higher prices and increased use of pesticides. Imagine if there was a sign in the produce section of the store that said, “Sorry, we had to raise the price on all items because of damage caused by the light brown apple moth.” The price increase is there - they just don't post the sign.

What can people do? For more information, visit the Invasive Species Web site.

Ken

It’s hard to make good choices in a toxic environment

We here at Brown Miller Communications are firm believers in the idea that unhealthy lifestyles and rising obesity rates aren't just a matter of individuals needing to make better choices. When it comes to discussing the best way to combat the obesity crisis, the loudest voices you hear are often the ones insisting it’s all about personal responsibility – that people are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. We’ve worked very hard to shift that perception and highlight the role the environment plays in the whole equation.

I was really happy to see “Fighting Obesity May Take a Village” in The Wall Street Journal. Matthew Dalton discusses the new strategy many countries are pursuing to address alarming rates of childhood obesity.

“The idea is that governments must actively work to change environments and reduce the menu of harmful options available in everyday life.”

A European program known as Epode — a French acronym for Together Let's Prevent Childhood Obesity — began in two French towns in 1992 and successfully lowered childhood obesity rates (from 11.2 percent in 1992 to 8.8 percent in 2004). Obesity rates in two neighboring towns that didn’t institute the program rose from 12.6 percent to 17.8 percent during the same time period. The program has spread to other communities in France as well as Spain, Belgium, Greece and Australia. It’s time programs like this are embraced here.

Over the summer, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published its first list of recommended community obesity-prevention strategies, but did caution that because the concept is so new there’s not much evidence to prove that it actually works. According to The Wall Street Journal article, experts say “a community-based approach to fighting obesity is probably the most promising policy available.”

It’s time to take the ball and run with it. There sure can’t be any harm in trying.

~ Nicole