Is it me, or has anyone else noticed the proliferation of fast food “All You Can Eat” buffet restaurants? Watch the ads, and you’ll see well-fit families loading their plates with moderate portions reflecting the major food groups. Stop in, and you’ll likely see something very different. I did just that over the weekend, when my daughter and I visited a new “all you can eat” pizza buffet restaurant, where for the low price of just $5.99, you can help yourself to about 10 different varieties of pizza, plus soup, plus salad, plus dessert, as often as you’d like… and then some. Beverages, mostly sodas or sweetened juices, are extra.

We were good, and just went to the pizza buffet once. However, during our time there, we watched several families hit the pizzas and the ample desserts at least three or four or five times each. Moderation was definitely out the window, as kids stacked their plates with varieties of pizza, cinnamon rolls, and brownies. Oh, and the video game room in the back of the restaurant was definitely a lure to keep kids there longer as well. The place was a potent mix of the seductions that lead to obesity. Suffice to say, we won’t be back.

Tagged as: healthy eating, obesity, video

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From Babe Ruth’s belly to Kirby Puckett’s bubble butt, Major League Baseball players have always been known as the portliest of professional athletes and apparently, their clubhouse meals haven’t been helping the matter any.
Last fall, National Public Radio reported that over a third of all Major League baseball clubs are skimming the fat and adding a new member to their roster – nutritionists.
In an interview with Giant’s pitcher Barry Zito, he described the San Francisco clubhouse as a nightmare for nutritionists. “There was every candy bar you could imagine right there at our disposal, every ice cream treat, and hot dogs, hamburgers,” Zito says. “You’d be amazed what professional athletes get fed every day. It’s probably worse than, you know, [what] the kids of America are eating.”
Players eat two to three meals a day at the clubhouse, so when the food served to the team is fatty and unhealthy, it becomes a part of their daily lives.
That is why this season, the Giants have followed suit and brought in a chef from a five star restaurant to cook healthy, but delicious meals. By twisting traditional recipes into healthier fare, the Giants – and a third of major league baseball clubs are slowly eating their way to healthier bodies.
But not all players are thrilled with the culinary changes. Some players, like Tim Lincecum, last year’s Cy Young award recipient, don’t feel that their diet affects performance. I am guessing most nutritionists and trainers will disagree. Either way, it is encouraging to see the MLB get as serious about health as they are about home runs. Let’s hope the players are carrying their healthy eating habits into the off season and onto this year’s field.
Read or listen to NPR’s piece on a healthier MLB.

Tagged as: Childhood obesity, healthy eating, Major League Baseball, obesity, sports

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A new study by Gopal K. Singh, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Health Resources and Services Administration, Rockville, Md. shows that more than 16 percent of American 10 to 17-year-olds were obese in 2007. Since 2003 there has been a 10 percent increase.

The study’s data shows that Mississippi had the highest obesity rate at 21.9 percent and Oregon had the lowest at 9.6 percent.

At the opposite end of the country, Oregon’s obesity rate was the lowest, at just under 10 percent. Also noted was that Oregon was the only state whose childhood obesity rates significantly fell significantly from 2003 to 2007.

So why is Mississippi struggling with this epidemic, and Oregon winning the fight?

Well, as we have discussed before, minorities are twice as likely as whites to be overweight or obese. Oregon is predominantly, or VERY predominantly white. 90 percent white, in fact. It also has a high rate of breast-feeding, and research has suggested that it protects against obesity.

Also, Oregon law sets high nutrition standards in schools and requires chain restaurants to provide nutritional information. Those steps, all taken recently, could not have shown up in the study’s results, but it does show how Oregonians feel about health.

Will President Obama, the First Lady and the Let’s Move campaign use Oregon as a model for fighting the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic? Can we find a way to bridge the health disparity for minority and under-served populations?

We can only hope.

Until then, those of us with out white skin, fat pockets, access to good school districts with healthy nutritional standards, fresh produce, playgrounds, parks and recreation and health care will have to find ways to modify, make do and work hard to fight for our children, and the prevention of childhood obesity.
to find ways to

Tagged as: Childhood obesity, Health Resources and Services Administration, Mississippi, obesity, Oregon, study

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Photo courtesy of ABC

For those of you hiding under a rock, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is here! You may know him from his Food Network show, The Naked Chef, but Jamie Oliver is more than just a pretty face – he’s a revolutionary. Jamie began his work in his home country England, instilling programs – Fifteen, School Dinners and Ministry of Food – that are changing the nation’s approach to food. Recently, Jamie has hopped the pond to take on America’s bad eating habits.

His quest is being documented in an ABC series called, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, in which Jamie heads to one of the nations most unhealthy states – Huntington, West Virginia – to take on the town and school system’s approach to food. This show is saddening, disgusting, frustrating, heartwarming and hopeful, all wrapped together. I was particularly mortified, when in episode two Jamie demonstrates to a group of elementary schoolers where their chicken nuggets come from.

In his demonstration, Jamie takes a chicken, cuts all of the good bits of meat, then sticks the remainder of the carcass in a blender, but doesn’t start it up before adding a “load of chicken skin.”

“Some of the processed foods you love are made from the bits you don’t like,” Jamie explains to the children. But the demonstration isn’t over yet, he puts the, now, chicken paste into a bowl and pours in all the flavorings you now need to make it taste decent. Then he fries up his very own chicken nugget asking the children, “Now, who would still eat this?” And, opposite from the response of every single group he has demonstrated this to in Britain, all the children raise their hands. The children seem to have a total disconnect between what they have been shown and the tiny, crisp golden morsel they see at the end.

However, Jamie’s cause hasn’t been a total loss. The petition on his website to, “support the Food Revolution,” currently has 395,645 signatures and is growing daily. And recently, Jamie became TED 2010 prizewinner. His talk outlines his food revolution in which he pinpoints education about food in schools and at home as the key to changing the most overweight country in the world.

While I want to believe a food revolution is possible – I have signed the petition, watched the show and the talks – at the end of the day, all those kids raised their hands. Is this revolution strong enough to take on a fast food nation?

Tagged as: chicken nuggets, Childhood obesity, food revolution, jamie oliver, obesity, obesity at home, obesity in school, TED

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