Free Republic

The federal Affordable Care Act, better known as “ObamaCare,” may provide activists and government a little-known wedge to advance their obesity agendas through regulated health-care providers — specifically America’s nearly 3,000 non-profit hospitals. One organization, The STOP Obesity Alliance, recently identified this wedge as a way to have such hospitals embrace its core convictions, including one principle which questions the role of personal responsibility as a cause and a solution to obesity.Community Health Needs Assessments. Section 9007 of the Act requires non-profit hospitals, as a condition of maintaining their tax-exempt status, to conduct Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs). These documents, which...

HHS:'Telework' Gives Gov't Employees More Time for 'Planning and Preparing Healthy Meals' May 17, 2013 By Terence P. Jeffrey (CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it wants as many as 20 percent of its workers to "telework," use an "alternative work schedule," or do both, in order to "reduce green house gas emissions," decrease "employee stress," and give these government workers more time for "planning and preparing healthy meals." So says one of the HHS "performance measures" detailed in an appendix to the department's latest strategic plan. HHS's performance measure "4.D.05" says: "Increase the percent...

First Lady Michelle Obama has expanded her anti-obesity campaign to museums, enlisting them to offer “healthy food options,” and change their menus. Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative is now calling for museums, zoos, gardens, science and technology centers to “join the call to action,” to decrease obesity among children. The first lady is recruiting these institutions to join the “Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens” project because of their power to “influence real and sustained behavior change” on the eating habits of kids. “With their impressive reach and great potential for impact, museums and gardens can launch community efforts to create...

Public School 244 in Queens, New York has become the first public school to have an all-vegetarian menu. Sounds wonderful, right? A school is offering only healthy choices to students to instill a life-long habit of eating healthy. I am sure there will be other schools that follow. We know the statistics of obesity among our youth in this country and schools are stepping up to educate our kids and help create healthy patterns; except the only part is that they are not educating. Education is the process of giving tools to a student, imparting knowledge and letting students reason...

For a long time conservatives have warned that the heavy propaganda and regulatory hands of the Obama administration were not going to change the exercise or eating habits of 315 million Americans... Now comes early statistical proof that after reelecting Obama with fewer votes the second time and 1,567 days of his reign of government intervention and stimulation, many Americans are deciding that maybe the Obamas' plans for their lives do not fit their plans for their own lives.

The Obama budget is finally out and there are, to no surprise, a potpourri of new tax hikes proposed, many of which are aimed at the "wealthy" among us. Deep within the bowels of the colossal budget, however, lies a proposed tax that targets the poor among us and it is perhaps a precursor of other health-related taxes to come. President Obama proposes raising the tax on cigarettes from $1.01 to $1.95 per pack--a whopping 93% increase in taxes. The White House estimates that the tax would raise $78.1 billion, of which around $66 billion would be used to fund...

The director of nutrition for McDonald’s is insisting that the menu offered at the fast food chain is healthy. Speaking about the launch of the new McWrap, Dr Cindy Goody said healthy eating is a top priority at the franchise. McDonald’s Corp. has been stepping up the pace of its new menu offerings as it struggles to grow sales in the challenging economy. Last year, the company ousted the head of its U.S. division after a monthly sales figure fell for the first time in nearly a decade. …

(CNSNews.com) – In a bipartisan bill opposing an expansion of food labeling requirements in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 10 Republicans and four Democrats have signed onto legislation to restrict the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to include regulation of convenient stores and take-out food outlets.The bill’s sponsors cited Section 4205 of the healthcare law, or Obamacare, that is entitled “Nutritional Labeling of Standard Menu Items at Chain Restaurants.” The regulation requires restaurants with more than 20 establishments to provide nutritional information about its offerings.The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), called the requirements “unworkable” for places...

On the heels of a study linking sugary drinks to 25,000 U.S. deaths a year, new research suggests salty food is even more dangerous.The new study, by the same Harvard research team, linked excessive salt consumption to nearly 2.3 million cardiovascular deaths worldwide in 2010. One in 10 Americans dies from eating too much salt, the researchers found.“The burden of sodium is much higher than the burden of sugar-sweetened beverages,� said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health and author of both the salt and sugary drink studies. “That’s because sugar-sweetened beverages are just one...

(CNSNews.com) – The municipal government of Washington, D.C. received a $1.8 million federal Community Transformation Grant in 2012 to promote healthy lifestyles in the city.Among the things the city would do with the money, as listed on its application, was increasing the "availability of fruit and vegetables to employees in their workplaces."Administered through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the grant was awarded in September 2011, which is the beginning of fiscal year 2012.According to the CDC, the grant is intended to target “approximately 445,000 residents living in the District of Columbia, focusing on racial/ethnic minority, low-income, medically underserved, and...

Piers Morgan and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s want to be dictators and slave masters. Regulating a person’s diet is the regulation of a person’s life. Here was Morgan’s response to a guest who disagreed with him on sugary drink control:“I think people need [these types of laws] occasionally, particularly on issues like smoking, drinking, guzzling sodas too big for them, you know, eating 16 Big Macs a day, whatever it may be, the reality is we all need a bit of nannying about that. That’s why so many people are on diets. That’s a form of nanny state.”When governments...

Diners will have to wait a little longer to find calorie counts on most restaurant chain menus, in supermarkets and on vending machines. Writing a new menu labeling law "has gotten extremely thorny," says the head of the Food and Drug Administration, as the agency tries to figure out who should be covered by it. The 2010 health care law charged the FDA with requiring restaurants and other establishments that serve food to put calorie counts on menus and in vending machines.

First Lady Michelle Obama "But in the end, we also know that it's not enough to simply change the way our children eat — we have to change our own habits and behaviors as well. And this is final point I want to make today. We as parents are our children's first and best role models and this is particularly true when it comes to their health. . .

If you love sausages, hot dogs, and brats, you might be in for a shorter life, a new study suggests. The study analyzed data from half a million men and women, as a part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. It was published in the journal BMC Medicine [PDF]. They found a link between "processed" meat — which includes all meat products, including ham, bacon, sausages; small part of minced meat that has been bought as a ready-to-eat product — and cardiovascular disease and cancer, they report. Also, they found that the more processed meat you eat...

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators is backing a bill that makes permanent a more relaxed set of U.S. Department of Agriculture nutrition guidelines for students’ breakfasts and lunches in the nation’s schools. The Sensible School Lunch Act was recently introduced by Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark. The act fixes the latest rulings on meat and grain servings made in December by the Department of Agriculture. It will “make sure that schools are able to provide healthy, nutritious school lunches” and breakfasts, Hoeven said Tuesday. “But at the same time, that we have the common sense...

Newly proposed federal regulations aimed at the snack foods and drinks served in the nation's schools could come with a hefty price tag. The American Action Forum estimates the regulations, which include caps on serving sizes and calorie counts, will cost schools $127 million and require more than 926,000 hours of paperwork. Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at the institute, says the proposals amount to yet another unfunded federal mandate for state and local governments, "at a time when many of their budgets are still struggling." The Food and Nutrition Service regulations would be administered by the U.S. Department...

(CNSNews.com) – First lady Michelle Obama is praising what has often been one of the left’s biggest targets, Walmart, for helping to fight obesity and “food deserts” in the United States. “At Walmart, you can believe that as America’s largest retailer, you have an obligation that goes far beyond the bottom line,” Obama said Thursday at a Walmart in Springfield, Mo. “You know that every day, with the products you sell, you’re helping parents get by on a budget -- which is what everybody in this country is trying to do. You’re helping kids get the nutrition they need to...

<p>Only you're probably not going to like his advice for losing weight -- just eat less.</p> <p>"If you eat less than 2,000 calories you'll lose weight," the mayor said on his weekly WOR radio show today. "If you eat more than 2,000 calories, you'll gain weight. Now some things metabolize more quickly than others. And everyone says I should go on this kind of diet or that kind of diet. Don't eat and you'll lose weight."</p>

When a New Zealand woman died in February 2010, her family swiftly pointed fingers at her 2.2 gallon a day Coke habit. Not the white powdery stuff, the drinkable, cola-y stuff. And although it’s taken three years, a coroner has found that the beverage was a major factor in her death. Coca-Cola had pointed out last year that too much water is bad for you as well, so it’s not surprising that the company disagrees with the ruling. The 30-year-old mother of eight guzzled a whole lot of Coke for years before her death, and the coroner said a bunch...

Diets lean on meat and rich in healthy fats like olive oil were most effective at promoting weight loss and lowering blood sugar among people with diabetes in a review of evidence from the last 10 years. Benefits were also seen with diets low in carbohydrates, high in protein or low in simple sugars. "If you look at different types of diets, these four can improve various aspects of diabetes control," lead author Dr. Olubukola Ajala, a diabetes specialist at Western Sussex Hospitals in the UK, told Reuters Health. More than 24 million Americans have type 2 diabetes. People with...

Please say a Prayer for my mother. I don't think I've ever asked some one to pray for some one else before, but she's in a tough spot. If it is her time to go it will hurt terribly, but as Catholics and the fact that she is the most caring, loving person I have ever met, I know we will meet again in a better place. I'm also extremely upset with the hospital, and I don't want this to happen to others. On the day after Christmas, my mother was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with Pneumonia. They...

I’m pretty critical of Senator John Hoeven at times, but he deserves credit for going to bat against federal overreach on school lunches. New federal guidelines that, among others things, limited calories in school lunches rankled parents and school administrators across the nation. It was a one-size-fits-all policy for a nation full of students who have very different nutritional needs.Now, thanks to the work of Senator Hoeven (who teamed up with Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor), the calorie restriction is no more, though just for the 2012-2013 school year. So it’s a temporary reprieve, for now. From a press release sent...

New Obamacare regulations will force pizza chains like Domino's to post up to 34 million nutrition signs in its stores -- one for every pizza combination the company makes. The rules require fast food and grocery stores that have more than 20 stores to require labels for each product they produce. Jenny Fouracre-Petko, the legislative director for Domino’s, said mandated signs will cost Domino’s nearly $5,000 per store. Even worse, the cost will get passed down to the consumer, many of whom will never see the signs since “10 percent of pizza customers never enter a Domino’s store” because they...

Obama’s former chief economist Larry Summers thinks that one way to break America’s fall off the over-reported fiscal cliff is to raise taxes to the level they were under Clinton’s administration. Echoing Paul Krugman’s 90% tax rate nostalgia and pointing out that it was conservative icon Ronald Reagan who cut taxes to 50%, he said, “It’s hard to believe that raising the top tax rate to 39.6 percent — where it was under President Clinton — will do grievous damage to the economy.” Of course, Reagan also cut the top tax rate to 28% in his second term, but that’s...

You know those little vials of who-knows-what that TV bills as a healthier alternative to energy drinks. Turns out they might make you die. Or to be more specific, the flavored energy shot "has been mentioned in some 90 filings with the F.D.A., including more than 30 that involved serious or life-threatening injuries like heart attacks, convulsions and, in one case, a spontaneous abortion," according to a New York Times investigation. ... Don't worry, 5-Hour Energy fans, Monster Energy drink is a culprit, too. Following a review of FDA records, The Times found that 5-Hour Energy was implicated in at...

IRVING, Texas — Hostess Brands Inc. is permanently closing three bakeries following a nationwide strike by its bakers union. The Texas-based maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs says the strike has prevented it from producing and delivering products. Hostess warned earlier this month that the strike, by about 30 percent of its workforce, could lead to bakery closures. It said Monday that it will close bakeries in Seattle, St. Louis and Cincinnati that collectively employ 627 workers. The company has about 18,300 employees. Thousands of members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers

TORONTO — A single junk-food meal rich in saturated fat is detrimental to the health of the arteries, researchers in Canada said. Dr. Anil Nigam and colleagues at the University of Montreal-affiliated EPIC Center of the Montreal Heart Institute compared the effects of a junk-food meal and a typical Mediterranean meal on the vascular endothelium, the inner lining of the blood vessels. Endothelial function is closely linked to the long-term risk of developing coronary artery disease.

Abstract The microbial communities that colonize different regions of the human gut influence many aspects of health. In the healthy state, they contribute nutrients and energy to the host via the fermentation of nondigestible dietary components in the large intestine, and a balance is maintained with the host's metabolism and immune system. Negative consequences, however, can include acting as sources of inflammation and infection, involvement in gastrointestinal diseases, and possible contributions to diabetes mellitus and obesity. Major progress has been made in defining some of the dominant members of the microbial community in the healthy large intestine, and in identifying...

Annika Eriksson, a long-time Swedish chef revered for her school lunches, has been squelched. Has she made errors? Are her meals contaminated? Has the quality of her ingredients slipped? No, none of the above. The trouble stems purely from the fact that her meals are too good. Yes, you read that right. She’s exceeding expectations. She bakes fresh bread every day. She offers 15 different vegetables at lunchtime. She knows it pleases the students to have choices. This is her crime because, you see, other schools don’t have the same benefits in the Falun district in Sweden. (This is called...

WEST HARTFORD —— The beef is there, but where's the pickle? That's the question students at Hall High School have been asking on hamburger day in the cafeteria since the food services department made menu changes to meet new school lunch rules from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Students are "outraged over the removal of pickles and salt from the cafeteria at Hall to meet nutrition guidelines," student representative Kendall Teare told the school board last week.

House Republicans say new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines aimed at forcing students to eat fruits and vegetables are a failure because students across the country are simply tossing the healthy fare into the trash. "[T]here remains great concern with the amount of food waste generated at school cafeterias, much of it brought on by requiring students to take fruits and vegetables rather than simply offer them," Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.), Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) and Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) told USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in a letter sent Thursday. "This is a waste of federal, state and local funds and...

ORBE, Switzerland (Reuters) - Nestle SA and General Mills Inc will cut sugar and salt in the children's breakfast cereals they jointly market outside North America, the latest attempt by major food companies to respond to health concerns. The two have been in a joint venture since 1990 to sell Nestle-brand cereals such as Cheerios in more than 140 countries outside the United States and Canada, markets which account for about half total global cereal sales of some $25 billion. They say they will reformulate 20 cereal brands popular with children and teenagers by 2015, boosting wholegrains and calcium and...

Students boycotting school lunchesPublished: Oct. 6, 2012 at 4:46 PM NEW YORK, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Many U.S. high school students are protesting new, healthier school lunches, and a professor says it may take a while for students to accept healthier food. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 required public schools to follow new nutritional guidelines this academic year, providing fruits and vegetables and limiting fat, sodium, and calories, The New York Times reported Friday. "Before, there was no taste and no flavor," said Malik Barrows, a senior at Automotive High School in Brooklyn. "Now there's no taste, no...

Lake County School Board officials are considering attaching cameras to school cafeteria trash cans to study what students are tossing after officials found that most of the vegetables on the school menu end up in the trash can. New federal laws require students to take a healthy produce at lunchtime, but last year in Lake County, students tossed $75,000 worth of produce in the garbage. "It's a big issue, and it's very hard to get our hands around it," said School Board member Todd Howard, who suggested "trash-cams." "They have to take (the vegetable), and then it ends up in...

Government-approved school meals as a model for the family dinner table? Responding to concerns that students are throwing away the healthy food on their cafeteria trays, the U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledged that adapting to the changes "may be challenging at first, as students are introduced to new flavors and foods in the cafeteria." But the government also says parents can help school make the taste-transition easier: "We know that many parents are already making changes at home to help the whole family eat healthier," the USDA blogged on Monday. "We recommend reviewing school menus with kids at home and...

Offering a myriad of health benefits, coconut oil is affordable, readily available and completely natural. I use it for EVERYTHING. Literally. I buy it in 5 gallon increments and keep it all over my house. I even have some in the car. So here is a little information to inspire you to check out this amazing oil!

<p>At Triangle Elementary School in Mount Dora, students shuffle through the lunch lines loading their plates with pears, plums, pizza slices and fruit slushies.</p> <p>At the lunch tables, many devour the cheese-and-mushroom pizza, guzzle their milk but leave whole pears, ripened plums and the slushies destined for the garbage.</p>

Building a comprehensive food stockpile is a daunting task, to say the least. For that reason, I recommend you begin stocking your home grocery store with basic foods that will enable you to survive during a relatively short-term (two weeks to three months) emergency and then gradually expand your inventory to enable you to survive a long-term emergency (one year or longer) that includes a full array of food and non-food items necessary and tailored to your family’s needs and likes. When considering what to store, keep in mind young children, babies, elderly family members and your pets. Keep special...

Children and parents across the country are fed up with the restrictive new school meal regulations implemented by the Department of Agriculture under the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010,” which has long been touted by first lady Michelle Obama. The standards — which cap meal calories at 650 for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, at 700 calories for middle school students and 850 for high school students — also dictate the number of breads, proteins, vegetables and fruits children are allowed per meal. A spokeswoman for Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who earlier this month introduced legislation to...

Legal challenges to New York City's ban on sodas larger than 16 ounces are unlikely to be successful, and the ban could spark similar moves in other cities around the country, according to experts. Thursday, after the city's board of health formally prohibited restaurants from selling sodas larger than 16 ounces after March 12, 2013, organizations around New York City said they would consider suing the city to get the ban overturned. Laura Palantone, a spokesperson for New York City Beverage Choices, a group against the ban, says the organization will "carefully review the regulation and explore our options now...

ROTTERDAM, N.Y. (AP) — One student complains because his cafeteria no longer serves chicken nuggets. Another gripes that her school lunch just isn't filling. A third student says he's happy to eat an extra apple with his lunch, even as he's noshing on his own sub. Leaner, greener school lunches served under new federal standards are getting mixed grades from students piling more carrots, more apples and fewer fatty foods on their trays.

The New York City Board of Health approved Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on large sugar-sweetened drinks Thursday, as expected. Eight of the board's nine members voted in favor of the ban; one, Dr. Sixto R. Caro, abstained. "I am still skeptical," Caro told The Associated Press. "This is not comprehensive enough." The plan, proposed by the mayor in May, calls for a ban on the sale of all sugar-sweetened beverages—soda, sports drinks, energy drinks, sweetened teas, coffees and fruit drinks—in cups larger than 16 ounces at the city's restaurants, food carts, fast-food joints, movie theaters, stadiums and sports arenas. The...

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/09/12/FLOTUS-Obesity-Absolutely-Greatest-Threat-To-National-Security

Odds are you sometimes think about calories. They are among the most often counted things in the universe. When the calorie was originally conceived it was in the context of human work. More calories meant more capacity for work, more chemical fire with which to get the job done, coal in the human stove. Fat, it has been estimated, has nine calories per gram, whereas carbohydrates and proteins have just four; fiber is sometimes counted separately and gets awarded a piddling two. Every box of every food you have ever bought is labeled based on these estimates; too bad then...

Genetics and healthy diets matter more for longevity. To those who enjoy the pleasures of the dining table, the news may come as a relief: drastically cutting back on calories does not seem to lengthen lifespan in primates. The verdict, from a 25-year study in rhesus monkeys fed 30% less than control animals, represents another setback for the notion that a simple, diet-triggered switch can slow ageing. Instead, the findings, published this week in Nature1, suggest that genetics and dietary composition matter more for longevity than a simple calorie count. “To think that a simple decrease in calories caused such...

School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Posted in Top Stories | 22 comments School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Aug 20, 2012 By Todd Starnes Attention high school football fans in Maine: B.Y.O.C. – Bring your own Coke. The Portland Public School system will no longer allow soft drinks to be sold on school property – including at high school football games. School officials are also banning the sale of gridiron staples like buttered popcorn and potato chips. Instead, football fans will be encouraged to nosh on baked tortilla chips, reduced fat string cheese and hummus. The total ban on...

DENVER (AP) -- There will be more whole grains on school lunch menus this year, along with a wider selection of fruits and vegetables and other healthy options. The challenge is getting children to eat them. "We don't want healthy trash cans. We want kids who are eating this stuff," said Kern Halls, a former Disney World restaurant manager who now works in school nutrition at Orange County Public Schools in Florida. At a School Nutrition Association conference in Denver this summer, food workers heard tips about how to get children to make healthy food choices in the cafeteria.

New federal demands for healthier school lunches are causing a summer scramble for Long Island school districts to meet the new demands. The real impact will likely be felt during the first weeks of school in September, when many kids begin to notice smaller portions of meat and increased portions of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Across the region, and the nation, districts are struggling with both the need to match new guidelines and to communicate the changes to parents and students. Districts are having to respond to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, championed by President Obama and First Lady...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and state officials are pushing initiatives aimed at encouraging new mothers to breastfeed their babies, drawing criticism from some parents who say officials are interfering with their health choices. State health commissioners announced on Tuesday that letters highlighting the importance of breastfeeding were being sent to hospitals, reminding them of regulations limiting unnecessary formula feedings for breastfed newborns. The state initiative coincides with Bloomberg's call for hospitals to lock away their baby formula and have nurses encourage new mothers to breastfeed.

NEW YORK (AP) — Medical professionals who favor a proposed ban on large-sized sugary drinks likened soda companies to Big Tobacco at a public hearing Tuesday, saying the plan would protect the public, while opponents accused the city of playing Big Brother and wondered what tasty but unhealthy foods might be targeted next. New York City's health board heard hours of testimony on a proposed rule that would limit soft-drink cup and bottle sizes at food service establishments to no larger than 16 ounces. Medical experts spared no rhetoric in hailing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal as a way to protect...