"child obesity" news and stories

I'm not sure if LunchBox software will help solve child obesity, but it can't possibly make things worse.

Some school districts in South Carolina will start using LunchBox this school year. Parents will be able to track their kids eating habits and restrict what their children eat. The system works by issuing students PIN numbers that are entered each time a purchase is made. Mom and Dad can then monitor junior's purchases from home.

From looking at the company's website LunchBox seems to be a POS/inventory/ordering/sales tracking solution that's trying to get parents in the loop.That's all well and good, but parents can't possibly track everything their kids eat at school. My folks never knew about the pints of Ben & Jerry's I scarfed during my free period in high school.

More school lunch tracking:

• Texas schools use technology to track lunches
• Fingerprint scanners to monitor what kids eat
• Healthy school lunches only, in Australia

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A new marketing code is being created in Australia. It may go as far as banning celebrity spokespeople and removing toys from kids' meals. This would make Australia the first western country to impose such measures.

The code is a response to a growing obesity problem among children that has been linked to surgery and fatty foods. According to this press release animated characters - like that tiger that use to (or maybe still does) advertise that overly sweet breakfast cereal and that annoying monkey for coco-pops that we have in the UK - will be banned as would the inclusion of promotional toys. I remember as a kid being very excited collecting cut out characters from the back of Golden Nuggets, a breakfast cereal I don't think you can get anymore. Oh happy days.

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The 'your children are fat and what are you going to do about it' vibe hits New Zealand as the chairman of an international obesity taskforce, Professor Philip James, says there is too much talk about obesity in New Zealand and not enough action.

Just as Jamie Oliver is taking action in the UK's schools, this chap says children's diets in New Zealand are "atrocious" because food companies recognise that by marketing to children they can manipulate eating patterns of entire families.

James says New Zealand should ban all food advertising on children's television and cut the goods and services tax on fresh fruit and vegetables. Voluntary codes do not work, he says, and New Zealand should pass laws to ban it and all other forms of food advertising that target children. Again like Oliver, he says that schools should ban sugary foods from their canteens.