December 11, 2012 — Who wins when public health fights Big Food? It’s too soon to call that battle, but in a debate held recently between Kelly Brownell, who heads the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, and Derek Yach, who has held leadership roles at the World Health Organization, PepsiCo, and the Vitality Group, a […]
December 10, 2012 — By analyzing data from 4,000 children born in Finland in 1986, researchers at Harvard University and Imperial College in London created a formula accurately predicts the likelihood of a baby developing obesity during childhood. The formula looks at only five factors: mother’s BMI, father’s BMI, baby’s birthweight, mother’s working status, and mother’s smoking status. According […]
December 9, 2012 — A number of developments in the works suggest that 2013 could be a pivotal year for childhood nutrition policy, with measures such as advertising curbs, taxes, or even bans in the spotlight. The Food Marketing Workgroup, a collection of advocacy organizations, started a chain of events in 2007 that are coming together now. Forbesrecently published […]
December 7, 2012 — The Federal Court of Appeals for Second Circuit gave new life to a decades-long debate on First Amendment limits to FDA power. The case concerns the off-label promotion of drugs. Off-label use of drugs is a legal and integral part of modern medicine. It is particularly common in oncology, pediatric, and geriatric populations. Many off-label […]
December 7, 2012 — In an unexpected turn, companies are beginning to seek people with obesity to represent their brands in ads. According to USA Today in a front page story, brands like Nike and Subway are going beyond than the usual casting agency model to find actors who better resonate with under-represented segments of the U.S. population, segments who have traditionally been ignored in advertising. According to the article, since two of three Americans have excess weight or obesity, more people can connect to actors who share this condition, and smart marketers are using them as images for change.
March 22, 2011 — On March 22, representatives of four major groups concerned with obesity met with senior officials from the FDA to discuss the concerns about barriers to innovation in the treatment of obesity. Leaders from the Obesity Society, Obesity Action Coalition, American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, and the American Dietetic Association met with Janet Woodcock, […]
February 24, 2011 — A wide range of patient and consumer advocates came together to urge the secretaries of HHS, Labor, and the Treasury to protect patients against discrimination in employer wellness programs. Health reform legislation allows employers to offer incentives in wellness programs that could range up to 50% of the cost of health care coverage. Ted Kyle, […]
February 15, 2011 — Richard Atkinson, MD, and Ted Kyle, RPh, served on an expert panel meeting in Alexandria, VA, helping to deploy a registry of outcome databases for obesity and other chronic diseases. This meeting is part of the Registry of Patient Registries (RoPR) project, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The goal is […]
February 1, 2011 — Despite a favorable vote by an FDA advisory panel in December, Orexigen Therapeutics announced that FDA rejected their application for a new obesity treatment called Contrave (naltrexone/buproprion). Obesity Society President Jennifer Lovejoy, PhD, expressed disappointment. “In the face of such a devastating, widespread and expensive public health crisis as obesity, it is baffling that the […]
January 20, 2011 — TOS President-Elect Patrick O’Neil, Advocacy Task Force Chair Ted Kyle, and Executive Director Francesca Dea joined with other leaders from obesity organizations (Obesity Action Coalition (OAC), American Dietetic Association (ADA), and American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS)) in meeting with Congressional staff for Republican Members of Congress who now have leadership roles on […]
