Celebrating Let’s Move’s third birthday

By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow and Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

This week, First Lady Michelle Obama is touring the country to celebrate the third anniversary of her Let’s Move initiative. The goals of Let’s Move are:

1. Creating a healthy start for children
2. Empowering parents and caregivers
3. Providing healthy food in schools
4. Improving access to healthy, affordable foods
5. Increasing physical activity

Through her various activities, Obama has increased national focus on alarming rates of childhood overweight and obesity; currently, one-third of children fall into this category. By putting the spotlight on increasing the health of school lunches and the importance of physical activity, Let’s Move has started important national conversations about the health of our children.

Additionally, the First Lady has worked with various restaurants and grocery store chains to develop healthier options, in the case of restaurants by decreasing the amount of salt and calories across their menus and by adding healthier default options to their children’s menu. By working with grocery stores committed to decreasing the number of food deserts by building new stores, Obama is also addressing the question of equitable access to healthy food.

While all of this work to ensure our children have a fair shot at a healthy future is beyond admirable, the companies the First Lady has chosen to work with to achieve these goals are not always so admirable. Specifically, both Walmart, the largest retailer in America, and Darden Restaurant Inc, the largest restaurant group in the U.S. and owner of the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse and other restaurants, face widespread criticism about their treatment of workers, including numerous cases of wage and hour violations ranging from unpaid overtime to unpaid minimum wage to forcing employees to work off the clock – all forms of wage theft.

Despite revenues easily topping $113 billion, the average Walmart associate makes just $8.81 per hour and working full-time (which Walmart defines as 34 hours per week) would make just $15,576 per year. That means hundreds of thousands of people who work full-time at Walmart still live below the poverty line, forcing many to utilize state subsidized benefits. Three major studies – one in Georgia, one in California and one in Massachusetts – found that Walmart was the company whose employees were most reliant on government assistance. Making Change at Walmart estimates that Walmart employees cost taxpayers more than $1 billion nationwide.

Between July 2005 and June 2011, Walmart settled an estimated 70 state and federal class action wage and hour lawsuits and lost one jury trail, involving well over a million current and former employees and costing the company over $1 billion. The lawsuits covered wage and hour violations that occurred between the late 1990s and 2010, including unpaid wages and lack of legally required breaks. Walmart also faces gender discrimination class action lawsuits stemming from their policies and practices on promotion and pay.

Darden has also had their share of employment problems, ranging from wage and hour violations to racial and gender discrimination lawsuits and policies that result in below poverty level wages for employees. As a part of the restaurant industry, Darden is allowed to pay tipped workers the tipped minimum wage – a mere $2.13 an hour. Tipped workers rely on restaurant customers for the majority of their wages. Even at $7.25 an hour, workers only earn $15,080 a year, well below the income level needed to lift a family of three out of poverty ($19,090 – based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services). With more than half a billion in profits in 2010 alone, Darden can surely provide better wages and benefits to its workers.

According to ROC United’s Saru Jayaraman, whose book “Behind the Kitchen Door” highlights Darden’s practices, employees report they are forced to work through their breaks, off the clock, and overtime without proper compensation.

Last fall Darden ‘tested’ a program to move full-time workers to part-time in order to avoid paying health benefits under the ACA. When consumer backlash ensued and profits tanked for the last quarter, (CNBC article “Darden Profit Sinks as Restaurant Promos Fall Flat” and Washington Post article “How Not to Succeed in Business: Promise to Dodge Obamacare Mandates”) Darden abandoned this ‘test program’. Like Walmart, Darden faces gender discrimination lawsuits as well as racial discrimination lawsuits.

We admire the First Lady’s Let’s Move initiative, but she can and should also play a much bigger role in promoting both fair and equitable workplaces while touting healthier food and lifestyles.

Pausing to think about plight of world’s 300,000 child soldiers for a moment

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

Today is an important day if you care about the welfare of children. Advocates have named February 12 “International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers” to highlight one of the worst forms of child labor. It’s hard to imagine that in 2013 the use of child soldiers is alive and thriving, but the BBC estimates that there are 300,000 child soldiers internationally. This number includes children of elementary school age who are handed automatic weapons and asked to kill, as well as others who are used for slave labor to support armies. Since January 2011, child soldiers have been used in at least 19 countries.

Many of the children suffer the worst forms of psychological warfare from their captors, who in many cases break them down by forcing them to kill or maim their friends or family. Many girls are sexually assaulted and forced to serve as sexual slaves. Many child victims are given drugs to keep them compliant. Their years of enforced service often produce intense psychological scarring that makes it hard to return to their communities. In some cases, they are shunned by their villages. Hear one girl’s compelling story in this YouTube video.

The Child Labor Coalition has tracked dozens of stories regarding the use of child soldiers over the last year and engages with its members to perform advocacy to reduce the use of child soldiers. Most recently, the warfare in Mali led to the recruitment of child soldiers, including children as young as 12. In early January, the United Nations decried the use of child soldiers in the Central African Republic, and in India, reports emerged that the militant group, the Garo National Liberation Army was using children in a variety of roles to support combat, including possibly the use of armed children. In early December, 2012, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on two “March 23 (M23)” leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for allegedly using child soldiers.

Not all the news has been bad. In June 2012, Burma made significant strides in reducing its use of child soldiers when it released an action plan to tackle the problem. In 2012, Yemeni authorities said they were committed to stopping the use of children in the military.

The challenges governments face to end the use of child soldiers are often formidable, however. A February 6th Huffington Post blog by Jake Scobey-Thal noted that despite some progress, child soldiers are still being used in Burma and cited the International Labour Organization that their numbers may be as high as 5,000.

Two members of the Child Labor Coalition, World Vision and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have been leaders in the effort to pressure the US government into abiding by a congressional law, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which prohibits military aid to countries that use child soldiers. They’ve also provided a valuable service with early warnings when civil strife reaches the point that children begin to be dragged into military conflicts as they have been recently in Mali, Syria and the DRC.

Is the U.S. doing enough to protect children from becoming child soldiers or from being harmed by military conflict? On February 5^th, HRW cited recent recommendations by the United Nations (UN) committee of experts and urged the United States to do more to protect children harmed by conflict. The UN committee had expressed alarm about reports that hundreds of children have died during US airstrikes in Afghanistan over the last four years and noted that children have been arrested and detained in Afghanistan. US laws, said the committee of experts, have also excluded former child soldiers from securing asylum here.

“The US can and should do more to protect children affected by armed conflict,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at HRW, who urged the U.S. to “take decisive action” on the children rights committee’s recommendations to address these problems.

In November 2012, Jesse Eaves, a senior policy advisor for child protection for World Vision told IRIN Humanitarian News and Analysis that the use of presidential waivers which is becoming a frequent occurrence is weakening the authority of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. “When the United States government gives a waiver to a country identified in the State Department’s [Trafficking in Persons] report as country using children in their national military, this weakens the authority of the law by not holding the country accountable for removing children from their armed forces,” said Eaves.

In a press release about International Day to End the Use of Child Soldiers, Amnesty International called on governments to adopt a global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to prevent armed forces, like those in Mali, from using weapons to recruit children as soldiers. Final talks on an ATT treaty are scheduled to occur in March, and according to Amnesty, “the current draft ATT text proposes weak rules to help prevent arms transfers to states or groups using child soldiers.”

Clearly much work remains to be done to get the U.S. and other governments to do the right thing when it comes to child soldiers, but working together, the members of the CLC and its allies hope that in the near future the use of child soldiers will be banished. Readers interested in this issue should visit the White House comment page and let their concerns about the use of child soldiers and presidential waivers of the provisions of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act be known.

 

Education-for-girls activist Malala Yousafzai walks out of hospital after assassination attempt

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

The world is celebrating great news that came in with the New Year: 15-year-old education activist Malala Yousafzai walked out of a Birmingham, England hospital on January 4^th, nearly three months after the Taliban shot her in the head and neck during an assassination attempt in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Malala spoke out on behalf of her generation of girls having access to education —a position that was in sharp variance with Taliban extremists who tried to silence her.

Malala’s recovery, although far from complete, is being hailed as a miracle and her resilience is being celebrated far and wide. Malala’s courage has touched many, including pop-star Madonna, who dedicated a song to the girl in the days after the attack. She appeared at a concert with Malala’s name in large letters across her back.

Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown cited Malala as a hero and visited Pakistan to press for open access to education. “Can Pakistan convert its momentary desire to speak out in support of Malala into a long-term commitment to getting its three million girls and five million children into school?” asked Brown, who is currently serving as the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education. Brown’s advocacy in support of Malala has led to calls to provide school access to all girls by 2015.

For more than two decades, the Child Labor Coalition has fought to protect children from the worst forms of child labor and Malala’s vision is central to that effort. “Access to education is one of the keys to reducing child labor—that’s what Malala is fighting for and that’s why her work has been so important,” noted CLC Co-Chair Sally Greenberg and the Executive Director of the National Consumers League. According to the Global Campaign for Education, 53 percent of out-of-school youth worldwide are girls, and millions of girls face discrimination, sexual and physical abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence.

In Pakistan, educational inequalities abound. The World Bank estimates that only 57 percent of girls and women can read and write, and in rural areas, only 22 percent of girls have completed primary-level schooling, compared with 47 percent of boys. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, nearly one-third of Pakistani children aged 5-14 are deprived of schooling, and the country is making “no advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.” Inspired by Malala’s case, however, the government of Pakistan has signaled its desire to provide equal access to education.

“The right to education is fundamental, and we stand with Malala and all those around the world who are working with us to make sure all children have equal access to high-quality public education,” said American Federation of Teachers Secretary-Treasurer Lorretta Johnson, also a CLC co-chair, in the days following the attack.

Malala’s education advocacy began at age 11, when she blogged about Taliban atrocities in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. She wrote about the closing of schools for girls, which were a result of ultra conservative views—supported by the Taliban—toward women’s roles in Pakistani society. According to published reports, Malala felt forced to hide her school books and feared for her life, knowing that advocacy might make her a target of the Taliban. At age 11 she said, “All I want is an education. And I am afraid of no one.”

“Education is power, especially for girls. Malala knows this and has used her voice to advocate for others,” Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association, a Child Labor Coalition member reminded us at the time of the shooting. “The Taliban underestimated Malala from the beginning, but her power has already been unleashed. They cannot call it back. An educated girl becomes an informed woman, able to make the best choices for her own well-being and that of her family; generations are impacted.”

Despite the unequal access to education faced by many girls around the world, there is some good news. According to the International Labor Organization’s latest statistics, the number of girls in child labor worldwide fell between 2004 and 2008 from 103 million to 88 million. “We need to keep that progress up. We need to keep Malala’s vision alive and provide girls with unfettered access to education,” said the CLC’s Greenberg.

Although Malala faces many challenges ahead, including additional surgeries, her recovery is nothing short of miraculous. Her heroism and advocacy for girls inspires us all and may indeed lead to lasting changes in educational access for girls and women.

The rising costs of asthma and the need for medication adherence

By Ayanna Johnson, Health Policy Associate

This post originally appeared at Mom’sRising.org.

The burden of asthma on the health care system continues to grow in the 21^st Century. Asthma effects more than 25 million Americans (8 percent of the population). Since 2001, the number of people diagnosed with asthma increased by 4.3 million, resulting in a 6 percent rise in overall healthcare costs. In 2007 alone, asthma was estimated to cost the United States $56 billion in health care costs and lost productivity.

Children have experienced increasing rates of asthma especially those living in areas with unclean air.  About 1 in 10 children have asthma, compared to 1 in 12 adults. The Centers for Disease Control reported that the largest rise in asthma, almost a 50 percent increase in new cases from 2001 to 2009, was among African American children.

Asthma, the chronic inflammation and constriction of the airways, can be treated and managed with appropriate medication. Almost half of all people with asthma in the United States have had an asthma attack; many of which could have been prevented with proper management. As, the incidence of asthma continues to grow, managing asthma is important to prevent further strain on the health care system.

Costs rise for asthmatics who do not take their medication as directed, leading to more missed days of school or work, hospitalizations and re-admissions and general decline in quality of life. A recent study found that 50 percent of children aren’t taking their medicine as prescribed, often because parents were afraid of medication side effects.  Approximately 11 percent of insured patients can’t afford their asthma medicine. Increasing the patient share of out-of-pocket costs for children’s asthma medications, led to more children needing emergency treatment for complications related to asthma (Karaca-Mandi et al 2012, JAMA).

Following a medication plan, or medication adherence, is important for asthmatics; it improves health outcomes and decreases overall costs. There are numerous reasons why people don’t take their medication as directed. It can be hard to understand that a condition like asthma is a chronic disease that needs to be managed daily.

Helping patients, parents, and caregivers understand asthma and talk with their health care providers about medication management can help to lower asthma health care costs and unnecessary emergencies. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommends developing an asthma action plan tailored to each individual to help control asthma, avoiding triggers for asthma, remaining physically active and consistently monitoring your asthma with your health care provider for changes.

The Script Your Future campaign, organized and developed by the National Consumers League, helps address the medication adherence problem for major chronic diseases, including asthma.  Patients need access to education to help take control of their asthma, especially for reasons that make sense to them. This campaign provides tools to manage medicines and sample questions to help start a conversation between patients and their   doctor, pharmacist or nurse about their medicine.  It also has information to help patients understand their condition. Many things—from allergies to poor air quality, stress, and anxiety—can trigger asthma. This  video explains more about what causes asthma and what patients can do to manage their health.  An important step to becoming adherent is to make the commitment to take your medicine. Script Your Future has a pledge tool—patients can pledge to take their medicines or even pledge to help their child take their medicine too.

Happy Food Day!

By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow

Today marks the celebration of the second annual Food Day, a day hosted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). This year, food day will be celebrated by people across the nation who have organized almost 3,000 events. These events will range from cooking classes to food flash mobs to talks on important food topics. Food Day has five main focuses.

1. Promote safer, healthier diets: Increasingly, our nation struggles with the epidemic of obesity. Two-thirds of adults and one-third of children are considered overweight or obese, and these numbers are only predicted to rise. Every year we spend approximately $147 billion on healthcare for diet-related diseases. Only by promoting healthy diets and educating both children and adults about what healthy eating looks like.
2. Support sustainable and organic farms: Throughout the latter half of the 20^th century, agriculture has become increasingly mechanized and large-scale. The use of pesticides has also increased. These changes have in turn inspired the move towards organic agriculture and sustainability which emphasize practices which utilize fewer pesticides and will cause less damage to the earth. These sustainability measures are particularly important given predicted increases in population over the next couple of decades.
3. Reduce Hunger: Near constant discussion of the obesity epidemic can obscure the issue that hunger still plays in this country. An estimated 50 million Americans are “food insecure,” meaning they are close to hunger. Additionally, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) provides, on average, only $4.30 per person per day.
4. Reform factory farms to protect the environment and animals: Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), large scale farms that house tens of thousands of animals at a time, have an enormous impact on the environment. These establishments produce massive amounts of waste, which is often spread on neighboring fields and can seep into the environment. Additionally, CAFOs often prophylactically treat animals with antibiotics to prevent diseases that result from crowded conditions. The overuse of antibiotics can lead to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria which in turn can be transmitted to humans, causing devastating illnesses.
5. Support fair working conditions for food and farm workers: While farm work is grueling and difficult, the pay is minimal and individuals who labor in the fields have salaries that vary from $17,000 to $24,000, depending upon the state. These workers are also not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which means they are not guaranteed basic protections other workers are afforded, including child labor protections. It is not uncommon for children as young as 12 to work 10- and 12-hour days, performing back-breaking work, harvesting fruits and vegetables in 100-degree heat.

Food Day should be an important day for all Americans because all of us need food to survive. Food cuts across cultural and economic boundaries, uniting us. The creation of a food system that is more fair and sustainable is something that we should all aspire to.

Stock up on Union-made treats for Halloween fun

Later this month, children across the country will cheerfully announce their presence at doorways hoping to receive sweet treats. While Halloween certainly belongs to kids, we adults get to make some decisions too. This year, advocates are calling on parents to be smart about the candy they purchase and hand out, find out if it’s made by unionized workers who are paid a fair wage.

A few labor-friendly candy manufactures include Nestle, Ghiradelli Chocolates, Hershey, Gimbals Fine Candies, Just Born, Necco, Nabisco, and Keebler.

At Union Plus, a Web site established by the AFL-CIO to provide consumer benefits to members and retirees of participating labor unions, consumers can view a list of approved candy choices provided by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM); snack foods by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW); or fruit and nuts from members of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

“NCL is happy to join with union allies and working families to encourage consumers to vote with their pocketbooks and support worker-friendly candy manufacturers this Halloween,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director.

Backlash against healthy school lunches going too far

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Last week, the New York Times featured a front-page story about the new school lunch program, which replaces fried food, French fries, burgers, pizza, and chicken fingers with increased fruits and vegetables. The article focused on how the program was causing kids to toss food in the trash bin. Indeed, a federal law, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 set a standard for healthier foods in school lunches. The Times article was incendiary in my opinion. The photograph splashed on the front page showed several plates of lovely green lettuce discarded in the trash bin at the end of the cafeteria line.

The article raised several serious concerns that call out for a response. One billion kids throughout the world are deprived of food, shelter, and clean water; 200 million are chronically undernourished. They would be grateful for a nutritious, balanced school lunch that provided them 850 calories, an amount many don’t see in an entire day. Honestly, where will it end? Kids are making videos showing themselves collapsing from hunger. In the hit song “We Are Young” by Fun, one student on the video sings, “My friends are at the corner store, getting junk so they don’t waste away.”

Secondly, fresh fruits and vegetables are a luxury that should be coveted, not trashed. The Times article makes much out of the fact that school lunches have become more expensive as a result of these changes – how much more expensive? They now cost a whopping $2.60 cents. 850 healthy calories for $2.60 cents; Sounds like an incredible bargain to me. And there are subsidies for those kids who can’t afford the $2.60. Additionally, the government recently approved an increase in the amount it reimburses schools for meals, provided those schools implement the new guidelines.

Third, childhood obesity is an epidemic in America. The percentage of overweight children in the United States is growing at an alarming rate, with 1 out of 3 kids now considered overweight or obese. Too many kids are used to eating calorie-laden, fast food options—including pizza and chicken nuggets in school lunch—that are high in fat, sugar and sodium. We should be celebrating, not attacking, the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act because it offers an alternative to these kids. While the school lunch program was established to deal with the endemic problem of childhood hunger—a problem which has by no means been solved—the bigger issue today is the rising tide of obesity. Scientists now estimate that children of this generation will be the first in history to have a lower life expectancy that their parents. Obesity plays a major role in this frightening development.

Fourth, what this article really illustrates is the importance of teaching children good nutrition early in life. The Web site KidsHealth suggests teaching kids early to eat and enjoy fruits and vegetables. The site notes that “Kids, especially younger ones, will eat mostly what’s available at home. That’s why it’s important to control the supply lines — the foods that you serve for meals and have on hand for snacks.” Exactly. KidsHealth recommends working fruits and vegetables into the daily diet. If you don’t teach kids to enjoy these healthy options at an early age, lettuce on the lunch tray won’t look appealing. But unless parents teach kids that salads and fruits and vegetables are not only healthy but can also taste really good, kids won’t develop a taste for these foods. As a result, they land in the garbage bin.

At the end of this blog is a list of suggestions to help parents foster good eating habits for their children. They are common sense suggestions that, if followed by American families, would not result in teenagers tossing perfectly good lunch offerings into the trash because they’ve been raised to think French fries, pizza and chicken nuggets are the only desirable lunch options. I think the New York Times did a disservice to the cause of improving the health and nutrition of our nation’s teens by sensationalizing this issue.

Follow these basic guidelines:

• Work fruits and vegetables into the daily routine, aiming for the goal of at least five servings a day. Be sure you serve fruit or vegetables at every meal.
• Make it easy for kids to choose healthy snacks by keeping fruits and vegetables on hand and ready to eat. Other good snacks include low-fat yogurt, peanut butter and celery, or whole-grain crackers and cheese.
• Serve lean meats and other good sources of protein, such as fish, eggs, beans, and nuts.
• Choose whole-grain breads and cereals so kids get more fiber.
• Limit fat intake by avoiding fried foods and choosing healthier cooking methods, such as broiling, grilling, roasting, and steaming. Choose low-fat or non-fat dairy products.
• Limit fast food and low-nutrient snacks, such as chips and candy. But don’t completely ban favorite snacks from your home. Instead, make them “once-in-a-while” foods, so kids don’t feel deprived.
• Limit sugary drinks, such as soda and fruit-flavored drinks. Serve water and low-fat milk instead.

Farm bill providing certainty to farmers, ranchers – and those in need

By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow

On Wednesday, NCL joined hundreds of farmers and ranchers on Capitol Hill at the Farm Bill Now! rally. The purpose of the rally was to draw attention to the imminent expiration of the current farm bill on September 30, and to the fact that no new farm bill has been passed.

The farm bill is a massive piece of legislation that is passed every five years. Comprised of various titles that deal with issues ranging from commodity prices to conservation to—most notably—nutrition programs, the farm bill is an essential package. It provides certainty to farmers and ranchers, who then in turn are able to supply Americans with a healthy and reliable source of food.

The largest part of the money set aside in the farm bill goes to nutrition programs. In fact, 80 percent of the funding in the bill is devoted to programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. These nutrition assistance programs, which help needy families put food on the table, are an essential part of the American safety net.

In recent years, which have been marked by financial hardship for many Americans, SNAP has served more Americans than ever. Currently about 46.6 million are participating in the program, up from 27.6 million in 2007. Additionally, SNAP has been shown to be an economic stimulator; USDA data indicates that every $5 in SNAP benefits generate $9 in community spending. The SNAP program is good for those who benefit as well as the farmers whose products they buy.

At the rally on Wednesday, Sally Greenberg, our Executive Director, spoke about the importance of maintaining funding for the nutrition title in the farm bill. She also emphasized how important small and family farms are to the American economy, and how necessary to their survival a dynamic and robust farm bill is.  Check out pictures from the rally at our Facebook page!

Curbing junk food marketing to kids

Lili Gecker, NCL public policy intern

Marketing is no doubt a powerful, but often subtle, tool. We are bombarded with media everyday and navigate through logos and jingles to make decisions as consumers. But what about when marketing is aimed toward children, who cannot fully understand the power of advertising? And what about when these consumer decisions impact our health? One study demonstrated that when preschoolers were asked whether they would rather eat broccoli or a Hershey’s chocolate bar, 78 percent of the children chose the chocolate bar and 22 percent chose broccoli. When an Elmo sticker was placed on the broccoli, 50 percent of the children chose broccoli. This holds incredible weight for food marketers and the children’s entertainment industry.

In addition, food companies have found new and creative ways to market their products to children. Advergames are online games that food makers are increasingly putting on their Web sites as a way to introduce children to their products. It has been estimated that about 1.2 million children visit company Web sites that have advergames every month, and children spend up to an hour each month playing the games.

In great part to First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative, the epidemic of childhood obesity has been brought to the forefront over the past few years. Childhood obesity rates have tripled over the past three decades, and today, nearly one in three children in the United States are overweight or obese. These numbers are higher in African American and Hispanic communities, where nearly 40 percent of children are overweight or obese. Obesity can lead to several health problems, even later in life, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, asthma, sleep apnea, as well as social and emotional problems.

The First Lady’s campaign, which aims to reduce childhood obesity by 5 percent by the year 2030, combines various strategies, such as prenatal health care, access to healthy lunches in school and exercise incentives. They also have an initiative to improve food marketing to children and youth. The Federal Trade Commission estimated that food, beverage, and quick-serve restaurant companies spent more than $1.6 billion to promote their products to young people in 2006.

The Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children (IWG) comprised of representatives of Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Disease Control, United States Department of Agriculture developed recommendations for uniform standards for foods marketed to children ages 17 and under, as well recommendations for the media. They released voluntary standards in 2009.

Joining the self-regulating industry groups, Disney has created its own set of standards. The company announced earlier this month that over the next three years it will phase out junk food advertising on its TV and radio programming targeted at children. All foods marketed on Disney channel will have to align with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In addition, Disney launched a new “Mickey Check” symbol, which will be used to mark nutritious foods on menus and packaging. This will take a positive step in encouraging children to associate healthy choices with entertainment, and it will make the decision to choose healthy foods easier on the whole family.

The media giant was praised by many public health leaders including Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, the Partnership for a Healthier America, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and Produce for Better Health foundation. First Lady Michelle Obama said in her statement of support, “they’ve realized that what is good for our children can also be good business.”

Whatever happened to P.E.?

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

As a kid I participated in the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. What did that mean? Well, my classmates and I were required to run the 50-yard-dash (I remember running past my gym teacher who stood with a whistle around her neck and a stopwatch in her hand – my time was disappointing), do a certain number of sit-ups (I surpassed my own expectations) and pull-ups (I could only do the girl version that allowed you to lean back with the pull up bar in front of you) and I can’t remember what else but the point was, the President thought our physical fitness was important and as a result, so did we.

Things are different today, according to the new CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) biennial report. There’s no more expectation from the highest office for the nation’s youth to be physically fit.

Nearly half of all high school students take no physical education classes. In California, while state regs say that elementary students must get at least 20 minutes of exercise a day, only 20 percent of schools are complying. At many schools, there is no gymnasium, and no gym teacher, and thus no opportunity for exercise. In New York, K-3 students are supposed to get phys ed class every day, three times a week for grades 4-6, and 90 minutes a week for 7 and 8^th graders. But none of the schools that were audited for the report were complying with this regimen.

What has happened to the focus on physical education that came with the imprimatur of the President of the United States? Principals blame budget cuts and the need to prepare students for tests, but also a lack of attention to phys ed from the Department of Education as well as school boards and superintendents.

It seems like a disconnect to me. First lady Michelle Obama has championed her “Let’s Move” campaign, introducing dance and exercise into schools and the kids love it – dance and music is a really fun way to get exercise. The President should revive the Council on Physical Fitness and make it fun, blending it with Michelle’s Let’s Move program and bringing in classes like power dance, yoga, pilates, and zoomba.

Harvard professor John Ratey, author of “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain,” says physical education helps promote better academic outcomes, but that phys ed teachers are fighting to hold onto their jobs and that it is dawning on educators that we’ve “missed the boat.” We’re facing ever-growing obesity among our nation’s youth; this CDC report is a wake-up call and a great opportunity for the President to step up and re-brand – Obama-style – what was once a priority for the American President: physical fitness.