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Michelle, Elmo, and anthropomorphized vegetables teach children about healthy eating.
Michelle Obama- are you trying to make me weep with joy? You come to DC and the first thing you do is visit a community health center. Next you plant an organic garden on the White House lawn. Now you come on my favorite childhood show and deliver a public health message! What on earth will be next?
Sadly, childhood obesity has become increasingly widespread problem in the United States. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found between the first survey (1971-1974) and the most recent one (2003-2006) increases in the prevalence of overweight children to be:
- 5% to 12% among the Sesame Street crowd, preschoolers age 2-5
- 4% to 17% among the Sponge Bob Square Pants crowd, kids 6-11
- 6% to 18% among the Aqua Teen Hunger Force crowd, youth 12-19
When broken down by race, health inequities become evident.
In 2003-2006, among boys 12-19, the prevalence of obesity to be
- 17% among non-Hispanic white youth
- 19% among African American youth
- 22% among Mexican-American youth
In 2003-2006, among girls 12-19, the prevalence of obesity to be
- 15% among non-Hispanic white youth
- 28% among African American youth
- 20% among Mexican-American youth
Although genetics can play a role in whether or not an individual will become obese, behavioral and environmental factors are a more likely responsible for the huge jump in prevalence.
During Mrs. Obama’s PSA she encourages parents to be healthy role models for their children. The 2005 Institute of Medicine report “Preventing Childhood Obesity: Healthy Bodies in Balance” also recommended parents “serve as positive role models for their children regarding eating and physical activity.” Other IOM recommendations for parents include:
- “Choose exclusive breastfeeding as the method for feeding infants for the first 4 to 6 months of life.
- Provide healthful food and beverage choices for children by carefully considering nutrient quality and energy density.
- Assist and educate children in making healthful decisions regarding types of foods and beverages to consume, how often, and in what portion size.
- Encourage and support regular physical activity.
- Limit children’s television viewing and other recreational screen time to less than 2 hours per day.
- Discuss weight status with their child’s health-care provider and monitor age- and gender-specific BMI percentile.”
With possible consequences such as Type II diabetes and asthma, the growing prevalence of overweight children is cause for worry.
Fortunately people, including the president and his wife, are starting to pay attention. Schools are pulling soda from vending machines, recess is being resuscitated, and some are even reintegrating local produce into their cafeterias. In September, 2008, Takoma Park Middle School students celebrated their first “Homegrown School Lunch Week.”
Want to learn more?
Haven’t seen Mrs. Obama’s adorable PSA yet? Watch it here
Sesame Street has resources for parents and fun activities for children as part of the Let’s Get Healthy program
Want to find a Farm to School program near you? Go here
Crave more statistics on obesity? The CDC has plenty!
Patty Young was an airline stewardess who lead the fight on getting smoking banned from planes.
Each time I fly I can’t help noticing the little no-smoking sign above the seats. A few things run through my mind before I get distracted by something else.
“Thank goodness people can’t smoke on planes” followed by ”Wow, gross, for a long time people could smoke on planes!” to ”I’m uncomfortable enough without sitting in a cloud of secondhand.”
The fact that lung cancer is no longer a risk of air travel is largely due to the tireless work of Patty Young. Ms Young was a flight attendant for 37 years, many of them spent maneuvering through smoke filled aisles. As a consequences she now copes with the same health problems as a smoker.
As a flight attendant Ms Young advised passengers disgusted by the smoking conditions to contact their senators and congressmen. Later she leveraged policy such as the American with Disabilities and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to ban smoking in pubic places. In 1993 the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport became smoke free. She also testified before congress multiple times.
In 1997 American Airlines announced smoking would be banned on all flights.
Young was also a leader in filing a class action suit to repay flight attendants for the damages wrought on their bodies as a result of a hazardous work place. In 1991 flight attendants had the highest rates of breast cancer out of any group in the country and were dying from lung cancer as young as 28. Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt were the attorneys in charge of the case.
In 1997 Phase I of the suit was settled, and with the settlement of $300 million the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute was formed.
The smoking ban movement is gaining even more momentum. Many cities are banning smoking in the car when children are present. Pro-Smoking groups are complaining, crying their civil rights are being infringed upon.
Wow, suffocating a 3 year old with cigarette smoke- a civil right- I feel like there is something wrong with that argument!
Although such anti-smoking laws are a step in the right direction- I feel social marketing techniques that make smoking unacceptable would be more effective. Otherwise public health initiatives are under threat of backlash. People tend to respond more positively if they change their behavior by choice- not force.
Thank you Ms Young for all of your work! I now know who to thank next time I fly.
What you can do
Support anti-smoking legislation. If you community is working to ban smoking in public areas- be sure to voice your support to local officials. Even better- get involved!
Just because it’s acceptable, doesn’t mean it’s right. Always be vigilant for behaviors that are the norm, but strike you as wrong. It is not destiny that brings about social change, but the hard work of advocates.
Source:
Moments in Leadership- Case Studies in Public Health Policy and Practice edited by Barbara DeBuono, Ana Rita Gonzalez, Sara Rosenbaum
I blame gardening for my love of carrots. Is this the case for others? The literature says "yes." Photo taken by me at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center in Fairbanks, Alaska.
I love vegetables. I love gardening. I love vegetables from the garden. I blame this on my mother. As far back as I can remember my mom has gardened. My intense love for snow peas stems from plucking them from the vine while my mom weeded. (I wasn’t very helpful) I also blame the orchard my mom and dad planted over 20 years ago for my adoration of apples.
While spending spring break with my friends’ at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center in Fairbanks, Alaska the White House garden story broke. Michelle Obama’s conversion of the White House lawn into a vegetable garden has been covered by every form of media. Michelle explained her rationale for the garden:
“What I found with my girls, who are 10 and seven, is that they like vegetables more if they taste good.”
and in a New York Times article:
“A real delicious heirloom tomato is one of the sweetest things that you’ll ever eat,” she said. “And my children know the difference, and that’s how I’ve been able to get them to try different things.”
Michelle put in the garden to help her kids eat better, along with her family and the White House Staff. I agree. My belief is that kids who grow up gardening (or watching someone do it) leads to better food choices.
However, being a public health student, I wanted to see what the literature said.
- A 2001 pilot study published in California Agriculture compared willingness of two groups of 50 first grades, one who completed a gardening project and that didn’t, to try vegetables. There was a statistically significant increase in willingness to try veggies among the children who gardened. (1)
- A 2000 quasai-experimental study was conducted among 111 Texas 3rd and 5th graders from different 5 schools. The study found among the gardening group a statistically significant increase in preference for vegetables and for fruits/veggies as a snack compared to students that were not part of the school garden.(2)
- A 2002 study among 213 4th grad Californian students found among children who received a combined nutrition and gardening program had a greater preference for snow peas and zucchini than children who were only educated on nutrition. After 6 months the gardening group still retained their preference for broccoli, zucchini, and snow peas.(3)
In the future I hope more robust studies are performed to show a concrete link between school gardens and improved food choices among children. The more evidence- the more likely foundations will provide grants to start more school gardens.
If my friends up at Calypso have been successful maintaining school gardening programs in Alaska- we in the Lower 48 have no excuse!
According to the Maryland Cooperative Extension- March 15 was the day to put in the snow peas. I wonder if the Obamas have put theirs in yet.
For More Information
Learn about Calypso’s School Yard Gardening Initiative in Fairbanks schools here.
Live in the DC metro area? It’s time to start planting! Planting dates listed here.
Live in DC but don’t have a plot of land? Try container gardening. Learn more here.
Want an heirloom tomato, but don’t have the time/space to grow it yourself? Search for local, seasonal food here.
(1) Morris, J. L., Neustadter, A., & Zidenberg-Cherr, S. (2001). First-grade gardeners more likely to taste vegetables. California Agriculture, 55(1), 43–46.
(2) Lineberger, S. E., & Zajicek, J. M. (2000). School gardens: Can a hands-on teaching tool affect students’ attitudes and behaviors regarding fruits and vegetables? HortTechnology, 10, 593–597.
(3) Morris, J. L., & Zidenberg-Cherr, S. (2002). Garden-enhanced nutrition education curriculum improves fourth-grade school children’s knowledge of nutrition and preferences for some vegetables. Journal of American Dietetic Association, 102(1), 91–93.
Photo Courtesy of the Indigenous Environmental Network
Today’s BBC headline highlights the human, as well as environmental cost of energy production.
In Fort Chipewyan, a remote town in northern Alberta is home primarily to Athtabasca Chipewyan, 3 people have died of a rare form of cancer. Cholangiocarcinoma, or cancer of the bile ducts, typically only affects 2 out of every 100,000 people. The town of Fort Chipewyan has just 1,000 residents. Those from Fort Chipewyan are also hospitalized three time more often than expected. Many residents have lost loved ones to other forms of cancer. Many fear the water is to blame.
Community members are concerned that chemicals released from the process of oil extraction from nearby tar sands are causing the increased cancer incidence. Rises in the price of oil have led to extraction doubling since 2000, and are estimated to triple by 2020. The process uses the nearby Athabasca River in the extraction process. Over the years local Athabasca Chipewyan have noticed an abnormal number of cancer ridden fish in their catches. Fishing is an essential part of the community’s economy as well as the traditional lifestyle of the Athabasca Chipewyan.
There is currently debate as to whether or not the extraction facility is poisoning the community.
Uninhabited?
The market is pushing companies to extract gas, coal, and hydroelectric power from more exotic locations, especially now when enormous profits are to be made. Many times the public is led to believe the new sources are conveniently located in desolate regions, devoid of life. This is rarely the case.
- Indigenous people have been poisoned as a result of hydroelectric projects in northern Quebec, Canada. In 1971 Hydro-Quebec flooded 176,000 square kilometers of Cree land, an area about two thirds the size of former West Germany, without informing (let alone consulting) the tribe. Subsequent methyl mercury build up in the reservoirs and fish stock water resulted in 14% of the population with dangerous blood mercury levels.
- “Clean Coal” (low-sulfur coal) is putting Northern Cheyenne communities in danger. While highway billboards may lead you to believe that most of the nation’s low sulfur is in the east, a 1971 Department of the Interior study reported that strippable reserves in the West were ten times more abundant than the East. What is more important to know is one third of the strippable low-sulfur coal is located on reservation lands. Due to reasons beyond the scope of this entry, this does not mean that the Northern Cheyenne will be consulted with or compensated for mining that occurs on their reservation land.
What to do?
Reduce your own energy consumption. Currently every source of available energy comes at some degree of environmental and human cost.
Clean coal, ethanol, wind; politicians and special interest groups are throwing out a variety of ways to deal with the energy crisis. Pay attention and be critical! Indigenous people are often targeted by corporations due to their relatively small amounts of power and influence. The media does not typically cover issues indigenous people face. Raising awareness is crucial in supporting their fight for justice. A place to start:
Indigenous Environmental Network
EPA Definition of Environmental Justice: “No Population, due to policy or economic disempowerment, should bear a disproportionate burden of the negative human health or environmental impacts of pollution or other environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local and tribal programs and policies”
Support Native struggles for justice. We must all work together for a more equitable world.
Sources: Laduke, W. 1999, All Our Relations- Native Struggles for Land and Life, First edn, South End Press, Cambridge, MA.
Dumont, C., Girard, M., Bellavance, F. & Noël, F. 1998, “Mercury levels in the Cree population of James Bay, Quebec, from 1988 to 1993/94″, Canadian Medical Association Journal, vol. 158, no. 11, pp. 1439-1445.
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