A menu overhaul is underway that will mean fewer meals that resemble fast food and more vegetarian offerings. Spinach tortellini in butternut squash sauce and California sushi rolls, along with many ethnic foods, are to be added.

Corn dogs, chicken nuggets and other breaded items are out, said Dennis Barrett, food services director.

Megan Bomba, a project coordinator with Occidental College’s Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, agreed with the move, saying “the meal needs to be better, not [that] we need to keep chocolate milk” to attract students to the cafeteria, she said.

The menu proposed for fall sounds more appealing and sophisticated, she added.

The district banned sodas on campuses in 2004, starting a trend followed by the state as well as districts across the country. Later that year, the school board passed a motion to ban the sale of junk food during the school day by restricting the calories and fat content in snack foods.

‘Unhealthy’ corn dogs, chicken nuggets out, sushi in at L.A. schools – latimes.com

Tobacco use, obesity and high blood pressure have dropped life expectancy in Appalachia, the Deep South and northern Texas, said Christopher Murray, the institute director and a report author. He called for more investment in public-health programs and increased emphasis on primary care so doctors can catch and control high blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Virginia Men Have 15 Years on Mississippi’s – Bloomberg

Women in large swaths of the U.S. are dying younger than they were a generation ago, reversing nearly a century of progress in public health and underscoring the rising toll of smoking and record obesity.

Nationwide, life expectancy for American men and women has risen over the last two decades, and some U.S. communities still boast life expectancies as long as any in the world, according to newly released data. But over the last decade, the nation has experienced a widening gap between the most and least healthy places to live. In some parts of the United States, men and women are dying younger on average than their counterparts in nations such as Syria, Panama and Vietnam.

Fat Thanks to Sunita K. for the tip!

U.S. life expectancy: Women’s longevity slips in some regions – latimes.com

This week, researchers at Umea University in Sweden released a startling finding: Couples in which one partner commutes for longer than 45 minutes are 40 percent likelier to divorce. The Swedes could not say why. Perhaps long-distance commuters tend to be poorer or less educated, both conditions that make divorce more common. Perhaps long transit times exacerbate corrosive marital inequalities, with one partner overburdened by child care and the other overburdened by work. But perhaps the Swedes are just telling us something we all already know, which is that commuting is bad for you. Awful, in fact.

Thanks to Anne Y. for the tip!

Long commutes cause obesity, neck pain, loneliness, divorce, stress, and insomnia. – By Annie Lowrey – Slate Magazine