Teenagers campaign for ‘traffic light’ labels on food packaging

The Guardian

Bite Back 2030, a campaign group led by teenagers, is calling for traffic light-style front of pack labelling to be made mandatory in the UK. The group said progress on improving child health was stalling. “We want honest, simple and helpful labelling like the traffic light system out there on everything. And if food companies won’t do it voluntarily, we want the government to step up and step in. The UK should be leading by example, not falling behind,” said Bite Back 2030’s youth chair 16-year-old Christina Adane. Read more

‘Sugar tax’ drives down sugar content in soft drinks, study finds

BBC Science Focus

The sugar content of soft drinks has undergone a “striking” reduction since the introduction of a sugar levy in the UK, researchers have found. Drinks manufacturers have cut the amount of sugar in their products since the levy of between 18p and 24p a litre was introduced in April 2018. The Oxford University research, published in BMC Medicine, claims there has been a 29 per cent reduction in the total amount of sugar sold in soft drinks in the UK between 2015 and 2018. 

You can read the article here

Good nutrition means longer life, says Canadian study

CBC News

Postdoctoral fellow Fei Men and Prof. Valerie Tarasuk at the University of Toronto’s Department of Nutritional Sciences and colleagues used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey to compare longevity in people with food security to those who are marginally, moderately or severely food insecure. The focus of the study is food insecurity but at root, it’s about the health problems and mortality associated with poor nutrition.  Read the article here

Healthy commercial ads don’t change teens’ desire to eat junk food

The University of Michigan News

According to new University of Michigan research, teens who had greater responses in reward centres of the brain when viewing commercials for unhealthy foods from fast food restaurants ate more junk food in a simulated fast food restaurant. A key finding from the study shows that healthier commercials from fast food restaurants are unlikely to encourage healthy food consumption because restaurant logos and branding trigger cues associated with the sale of predominantly unhealthy foods.

You can read the article here and find the study here (paywall)

Why Britain’s government should prioritise obesity to relieve NHS pressure

Telegraph UK

An exploration of the enormous economic costs of obesity and some steps that can be taken to ensure health systems do not collapse under the burden of rising obesity-related cancer, diabetes and heart diseases.  Read the article here

Lidl to ditch cartoons on cereals

BBC News

Lidl, a popular UK grocery store chain, has announced plans to remove cartoon characters from all its own-brand cereal packaging in the UK by spring 2020.  Lidl says the move will encourage healthier choices and help parents tackle ‘pester power’ from their children. Caroline Cerny, of the Obesity Health Alliance – a coalition of organisations such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the British Medical Association – welcomed what it called a “responsible approach”.

Read more here

 

Is this the secret to getting teens to reject junk food?

Washington Post

Using a media literacy approach to make teens aware of misleading marketing practices has more of an effect on their diets than the traditional approach of telling them a certain food is unhealthy. This was especially true for male students in a recent study, who purchased less junk food in the lunchroom for the remaining three months of the school year compared with those who heard traditional messages.

You can read the article here

Coke, crisps, convenience: how ads created a global junk food generation

The Guardian

New research claims that blanket exposure to promotional material for unhealthy foods is encouraging children to eat badly around the world. 100 schoolchildren in seven countries were asked by researchers from University College London to film themselves and the food they eat for a study about the exposure of children to unhealthy diets. The accompanying policy-analysis shows that policy responses to address diet-related non-communicable diseases remain largely inadequate with responses anchored around individual behaviour change and personal responsibility.

You can read the article here

Healthy diet could save $50 billion in health care costs

Science Daily

A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in collaboration with investigators at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, analyzed the impact of 10 dietary factors and estimated the annual cardiometabolic disease costs of suboptimal diet habits. The team concludes that suboptimal diet costs approximately $300 per person, or $50 billion nationally, accounting for 18 percent of all heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes costs in the US.

You can read the study here

Double burden of obesity, undernourishment stalks world: report

CTV News

Low- and middle-income countries risk seeing their development progress slashed by the double-edged sword of obesity and undernutrition, both caused by a lack of access to affordable healthy food, a report in The Lancet warned. This “double burden of malnutrition”, affects more than a third of some 130 countries classed as low-and middle-income, and it is increasingly seen in the same household — most commonly an overweight mother and a child stunted by undernutrition living under the same roof.

You can read the report here