Category Archives: obesity

Would calorie-counting menus help bust Oz girths?

November 17, 2009 – 11:59 am

As previously reported in Croakey below, there is a weight-busting move afoot in the US to introduce calorie-counting menus in chain restaurants. These have been in place in New York City since last year but may be more widely introduced.
Would such a move be useful and welcomed in Australia? Read on…

By Croakey | Also posted in Food, public health | Tagged , , | Comments (5)

How many calories would you like with that order?

November 13, 2009 – 10:42 am

The health care reform bill in the US is so weighty that many people haven’t yet twigged that it contains a significant provision for those concerned about a healthy food supply and obesity. The provision would require anyone who operates chain restaurants or vending machines with more than 20 locations to provide a calorie count [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Food, health reform, public health | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

Want to see a real food war? This is the stoush to watch

November 6, 2009 – 6:08 pm

In case you missed it, there’s been a minor food spat going on at Crikey. When the nutritionist, Dr Rosemary Stanton, called for foods to be taxed according to their carbon footprint, this, predictably enough, got right up the noses of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, as well as their friends at the Institute [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Food, Media-related issues, climate change, public health | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (4)

Passion DOES have a place in public health

November 4, 2009 – 3:41 pm

The discussion about relationships between public health and the food industry continues…
Boyd Swinburn, Professor of Population Health, and Director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University, writes:
“Stephen Leeder makes a well argued plea for people to quit blasting the food industry with moral indignation and to work with them to find [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Food, public health | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Opening another front in the public health/food industry debate

November 4, 2009 – 1:41 pm

The recent debate between nutritionist Dr Rosmary Stanton and PepsiCo executive Dr Derek Yach generated much discussion at Croakey. Many public health experts were sceptical about the intentions of companies like PepsiCo.
However, Stephen Leeder, Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, argues that the public health community needs to move beyond moral indignation [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Food, public health | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

The soft drink wars heat up

October 22, 2009 – 8:59 am

The debate between Derek Yach of PepsiCo and public health sceptics is being watched from afar.
Obesity control expert Professor Boyd Swinburn has sent in his observations while travelling in the US. He writes:
“I am currently in Boston and read with interest the comments about Derek Yach and Pepsi’s PR mission to Australia.
The TV in the [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Food, health & medical marketing, public health | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

PepsiCo responds…

October 22, 2009 – 8:51 am

As previously mentioned in Croakey posts and in this Crikey story, a tobacco control advocate turned senior PepsiCo executive, Derek Yach, recently debated public health nutritionist Rosemary Stanton at the University of Sydney. He has asked for right of reply to the Crikey piece.
He writes:
“The pity is that Melissa clearly did not absorb the objective [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Food, health & medical marketing, public health | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Selling our children to McDonald’s

October 2, 2009 – 6:27 pm

According to the Daily Telegraph, McDonald’s has “pulled off one of the marketing coups of the year” by signing up more than 230,000 NSW students to its maths tutoring program.
The paper says that 46 per cent of the state’s secondary students have registered for the Maths Online tutoring program. Nationally, more than a third of [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in child health, health & medical marketing, public health | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

Should employers be helping the fight against fat?

October 1, 2009 – 1:02 pm

One of the many barriers to tackling overweight and obesity is that no-one thinks it’s their problem or their responsibility. People who are overweight often don’t recognise that they are or do not understand the health consequences. Industries that flog junk foods are adamant that it’s not their fault. Property developers, local governments and town [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in physical activity, prevention | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

How can we put all health interventions on an equal footing? A Croakey survey

September 8, 2009 – 11:30 am

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s final report made many suggestions requiring much more work if they are ever to have any chance of implementation. Consultancies must be rubbing their hands in anticipation of the business that health reform will generate.
Here at Croakey, we thought we’d do our bit to save the public [...]

By Croakey | Also posted in Health inequalities, evidence-based issues, health reform, pharmaceutical industry, prevention, public health | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)