Posted by Natalie Deangelo on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 @ 05:55 PM
Happy Friday, Fighters. I hope you all had a healthy and happy week!
Those of you who read the Friday Fight know I am constantly posting crazy (and sadly, real) examples of how our environment continues to be a difficult place to manage our weight. Fast food restaurants are supersizing their already supersized menu items, foods are becoming increasingly higher in calorie, and marketers love to lure us with sneaky tactics to treat food as a reward.
That's why the staff at Full Life was thrilled to see the first bill passed to ban Happy Meals in the County of Santa Clara, California! The way we see it (along with those who proposed the bill), is that the toy serves as the prime motivation for kids to pack in over 550 calories, and 25 grams of fat. A pure marketing tool that has been a major contributing factor in a country wide childhood obesity epidemic.
"This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's' love of toys" to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure. "This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes."
We coudn't agree more. Quite honestly, we were just stunned at the amount of people who opposed it, stating it is not the fast food chain's fault, but moreso the choice of the parents. Yes, we also believe it is the parents responsibilty to help their children eat good foods. But the fact is, if it is there, we'll eat it. Why not make sure it's not there, take that choice out completely and fill the space with something good? My final thought: If we are going to change how we eat, it has to start somewhere. Way to go Santa Clara!
For more info, check out the video here: http://news.yahoo.com/video/business-15749628/where-happy-meals-are-illegal-19362009
We want to hear your thoughts. How does your opinion stack up?
Posted by Alicia Leeds on Thu, Aug 13, 2009 @ 04:37 PM
Finally! People are talking about how we care for our health and not just how we pay for disease management.
Here's what Dean Ornish said on Larry King Live the other night, "The real issue is that the problem with health reform is that it's focusing way too much on who's covered... but not enough on what's covered... if we just do more bypass surgery and angioplasty and drugs and so on, on 48 million more people, then costs go up exponentially. That's when we have these painful choices like rationing, raising taxes, letting the deficit go up.
But what we have found in our studies is that lifestyle cannot only be prevention, it can be treatment. Three quarters of the 2.1 trillion dollars in health care costs are really sick cares costs. It goes for four diseases: heart disease, diabetes, prostate and breast cancer and obesity, all of which we found not only can be prevented, but even reversed by changing lifestyle at a fraction of the cost."
HMR has been in the business of treating obesity for more than 25 years. We know lifestyle intervention works and we have published results to back it up.
So, we can continue to argue about who should provide what for us and how to pay for it, or we can stop treating the symptoms and focus on the cure. We can change the way we eat and we can find ways to move more. We could stop arguing over what someone else should do for us and and start asking what we can do for ourselves.
Why put your health in the hands of democrats or republicans when your lifestyle choices are not theirs to make? Take a walk while you are calling your congressman because your health care, ultimately, is up to you.