Obesity News and Treatment
Campbell aims to reduce hunger and obesity among Camden kids
CAMDEN — Can you teach a kid to make a fresh fruit smoothie instead of popping a can of cola?
Campbell Soup Co. wants to give it a try.
The world’s largest soup maker today will launch a $10 million plan to reduce obesity and hunger over the next 10 years among children living in its hometown.
Initially, Campbell will focus on elementary schools and services in Parkside, where its headquarters is located, and in North Camden, the city’s poorest sector.
“We plan to concentrate our efforts on these sites in Camden and gradually expand to other locations until we have a citywide program,” said Denise Morrison, Campbell’s chief operating officer.
“Over time, we plan to extend it to other U.S. communities where we have operations,” added Morrison, who will become CEO in July.
Statistics show the need is great.
“Obesity is a national crisis, but it is even more acute in Camden,” said CEO Douglas R. Conant.
Nearly 40 percent of Camden’s children between ages 3 and 19 are obese, an 8 percent jump over the national average.
Working with schools and an array of nonprofits, Campbell’s goals are to increase access to affordable, healthy food; expand opportunities for physical exercise and increase nutrition and health education.
Founded in Camden in 1869, Campbell is the city’s and county’s only Fortune 500 company.
High on the company’s list of objectives is to help bring a second major supermarket to the city, a task residents and groups have been unable to accomplish for decades. Today, the city’s 78,000 residents are served by a single Pathmark on Mount Ephraim Avenue.
Meanwhile, the company will work with the Food Trust on a Healthy Corner Store Network to supply small mom-and-pop grocery stores with equipment and training to order, price and display fresh produce.
Campbell also will combine with the city and the Children’s Garden on the waterfront to convert abandoned urban lots into leafy green vegetable gardens.
Recognizing that physical exercise is integral to good health, the soup maker will fund recess and after-school activities at six pilot sites in conjunction with the YMCA of Burlington and Camden counties. Camden’s own YMCA closed more than two years ago due to lack of funding and membership.
And the last ingredient in a recipe for good health is knowledge. Campbell plans to teach free, six-week cooking courses at sites administered by the Food Bank of South Jersey and offer nutrition education directly to students. Campbell expects many of its 1,200 Camden employees to volunteer as part of the program.
The company released its plan to reduce childhood obesity and hunger in its 2010 corporate responsibility report. Kim Fremont Fortunato, hired by Campbell in November, will head the novel program.
Fortunato, 53, will work with government, nonprofit partners and the medical community at local, regional and national levels to build the program, according to a press release.
Before joining Campbell, Fortunato was president of Operation Warm, an organization that distributed more than 200,000 coats a year to the needy.
Michelle Obama portrayed as overweight in cartoon attacking her obesity campaign
US First Lady Michelle Obama has been portrayed as an overweight, hamburger-munching glutton in a very personal cartoon attack.
The offensive caricature, which was posted on Biggovernment.com, is a dig at her obesity campaign, which celebrated its one-year anniversary last week, reports the Daily Mail.
It comes as Barack Obama’s wife pushes her campaign to improve workplace rules for breastfeeding to reduce the number of overweight children.
Conservatives have criticised the campaign, calling her a hypocrite and suggesting it is not her place to tell Americans what they can and cannot eat.
In the cartoon, she is seen telling her husband: “I’ve stepped up my efforts to control America’s eating habits by telling restaurants to lower portion sizes and fat content.”
Obama, who is shown looking slender and eating some morsels of salad, dismisses her remark, saying: “Michelle, I want to get re-elected. What you’re doing is only going to annoy a lot of people.”
“Shut up and pass the bacon!” she replies.
The First Lady began her Let’s Move! initiative – which is dedicated to improving the disastrous U.S. childhood obesity rates within a generation – last year. (ANI)
Obesity in kids doubles over the last decade
COIMBATORE: In the backdrop of today’s fast food culture, it is hardly surprising that one in ten children in Coimbatore, between six and 12 years is obese. What is alarming is that an equal number of children in semi-rural areas are overweight and one in every twenty five children is obese.
Pediatricians say childhood obesity is signaling a distressingly new health trend. Of 10,229 children, aged between six to twelve years, treated as outpatients at a private hospital in Coimbatore in 2010, as many as 1,118 were obese. It is a disturbing fact that 10% of children in the city are obese. “Ten years ago, this was less than five per cent” says Dr C Srinivasan, chief paediatrician at the KG Hospitals.
The data showed that except for 10 children (among the 10,229) who had hormonal imbalances or genetic predisposition, obesity in the other children was largely due to lifestyle. With both parents working, and fast food affordable and easily available, it has become a major part of a child’s diet. Depending on height and age, children should ideally get about 1200 to 1700 calories a day. But with high fat, low protein food like burgers, pizza and French fries, children tend to eat about 2,500 calories a day. Add to this the sedentary lifestyle children lead, spending most of their free time watching TV or playing video games.
In 2009, the department of health found 9.59% of school children in Coimbatore district overweight and 4.6 per cent were obese. Studies done in Chennai by MV Hospital shows that 22% of girls from higher socio-economic group were overweight when compared to 9% from those of low income group. Among boys it was found to be 13% and 7% respectively. Obese children are at the risk of developing serious health problems that normally affect middle age adults. For instance, these children are more susceptible to chronic disorders like type-2 diabetes and heart ailments.