Fast food companies including McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken have been invited by the Department of Health to help write government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease.

Processed food and drink manufacturers including PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Mars and Diageo are also among the businesses that have been asked to contribute to five ‘responsibility deal’ networks set up by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

Campaign groups have criticised the move as an impossible alliance between big business and public health, likening it to placing the tobacco industry in charge of smoke-free spaces.

McDonald’s, KFC and Pepsi to help set government health policy on obesity | Mail Online

While cheese isn’t necessarily the healthiest option one ounce can contain as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk, it’s not the enemy. While I would avoid, say, a Taco Bell quesadilla with three kinds of cheeses plus cream sauce, a healthy serving of cheese can be just that — healthy!

Healthy Cheese Tips

Queensland Health Minister Paul Lucas says it is time to develop a national plan to cut the amounts of energy, fat, sugar and salt in fast food.

Mr Lucas says the fast food habit is having a devastating effect on the nation’s health.

“In 1980, 8 per cent of the Australian population was obese. Today it is 25 per cent and the real problem is we have got an epidemic of diabetes,” he said.

“If someone ends up on dialysis at the end of that, that is $80,000 a year to treat. This is an epidemic and it is one that we have to take action on.”

Queensland leads push for fast food crackdown – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The study that looked at the burden of overweight citizens in six countries — Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa — has found that between 1998 and 2005, India’s overweight rates increased by 20%.

Currently, almost 1 in 5 men and over 1 in 6 women are overweight. In some urban areas, the rates are as high as 40%.

Published in the Lancet on Thursday by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the study warns that low-income countries cannot cope with the health consequences of wide scale obesity.

‘India in grip of obesity epidemic’ – The Times of India

An effort by Pennsylvania schools to get students to eat healthier is coming under fire from Sarah Palin.

The proposed new guidelines would limit the amount of sweets in classroom parties and reduce the number of holiday and birthday celebrations.

On the proposed regulations, Palin called Pennsylvania a “nanny state run amok.” In protest, she brought 200 sugar cookies to a Bucks County school fundraiser Tuesday.

“I had to shake it up a little bit because I heard there is a debate going on in Pennsylvania over whether most schools condemn sweets, cakes, cookies, that type of thing,” Palin said. “I brought dozens and dozens of cookies to these students.”

Instead, parents would be encouraged to serve healthy snacks, such as fruits or vegetables.

The Pennsylvania State Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the proposed guidelines this spring.

“You shouldn’t have been making these decisions about what you can eat at the school. Should it be the government or should it be the parents?” Palin asked.

Sarah Palin Cookie Protest: Calls Pennsylvania a ‘Nanny State Run Amok’ – ABC News

A recent New York Times article explains that when Domino’s Pizza sales were suffering, one organization called Dairy Management stepped forward and suggested the pizza chain add 40 percent more cheese per pie. The organization also threw in $12 million for a marketing campaign.

The organization responsible for suggesting the fatty fix, Dairy Management, is under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency that’s been promoting healthier foods and lifestyle choices.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Marion Nestle, professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University, explains why a government agency such as the USDA is seemingly contradicting its own mission:

“From its beginnings in the 1860s, USDA’s role was to promote U.S. agricultural production and sales, with the full support of what was then a largely agricultural Congress. Only in the 1970s, did USDA pick up all those pesky food assistance programs and capture the ‘lead federal agency’ role in providing dietary advice to the public.”

Government agencies fight fat while promoting cheese | syracuse.com

Why? Because many TV programmers, even if they’re not stupid enough to say so publicly, believe most of us might be OK with shows like NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” or Bravo’s “Thintervention with Jackie Warner,” which focus on trimming the fat, but that we’re not as interested in seeing them off the treadmill, much less dating.

Why aren’t there more fat people on TV? | Philadelphia Daily News | 11/09/2010

By the time they reach their late 20s to early 30s, people who were obese between 12 and 21 are more than seven times more likely than normal-weight or overweight peers to develop severe obesity — defined as having a body mass index, or BMI, of 40 or more — according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Obesity often follows the young into adulthood – latimes.com

Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food.

The premise held up: On his “convenience store diet,” he shed 27 pounds in two months.  His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.

But you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.

Haub’s “bad” cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his “good” cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.

“That’s where the head scratching comes,” Haub said. “What does that mean? Does that mean I’m healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we’re missing something?”

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds – CNN.com

“Today, preschoolers see 21% more fast food ads on TV than they saw in 2003, and somewhat older children see 34% more, said Harris.

According to the study, 40% of kids ages 2-11 ask their parents to go to McDonald’s at least once a week. 15% of preschoolers ask to go every day.

This incessant advertising is working. 84% of parents with kids ages 2-11 reported taking their young child to a fast food restaurant at least once in the last week.

While fast food restaurant commercials may hawk healthy sides like apple slices and low-fat milk, the study found restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King serve french fries with kids’ meals at least 86% of the time, and soft drinks at least 55% of the time.

The healthy sides are rarely served as a default; they have to be requested.

Plus, it seems healthy foods never have a chance to be seen as tasty on their own. At McDonald’s, where apple slices can be switched out for fries in a Happy Meal, they’re routinely seen with a side of caramel sauce for “dipping.” The idea the apples should be dipped in something is so strong, the slices are called “Apple Dippers.”

Fast Food Restaurants Market Non-Healthy Menu Items Heavily To Kids