Headlines (page 396)

A new study in the March issue of American Journal of Public Health challenges some of the scarier rhetoric put forth by nannies promoting the so-called obesity epidemic. According to the researchers, people with body mass indexes between 25 and 29, who the nannies have described as dangerously overweight, are at no greater risk for early mortality. In fact, they report such people may suffer needlessly from stigmatization.

The Columbus Dispatch questions nannies' baseless claims about the benefits of organic foods, pointing out that even the head of the Organic Trade Association recently had to admit that organic foods "are not safer or more nutritious than other foods."

The New York Post plugs the nannies at Chef's Collaborative 2000 and their effort to eliminate GE foods from restaurants. Spokesmen for the group say they help educate fellow chefs and the public in choosing "good, clean food," i.e. organic food. The group continues to ignore research findings that prove organic food can be more dangerous to eat than conventionally grown food.

Knight-Ridder News Service gives Murry J. Cohen of militant animal-rights group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine a free ride in a syndicated editorial. In effort to scare to public with baseless claims about meat and dairy products, Cohen writes: "As we fret over the possibility of a modern plague, we live a self-fulfilling prophecy by continuing to eat meat and other animal products." ("Eating responsibly in the age of the epidemic," Knight-Ridder, 3/1/00.)

Marketing soy as a product that will help alleviate hot flashes has allowed soy producers to make a dent in dairy sales. However, researchers from the Mayo Clinic have nixed the soy producers' claims. "Despite optimistic hopes that this soy phytoestrogen product would alleviate hot flashes, the scientific data from this study demonstrated that it did not help," said one researcher.

Students at Penn State University will hold a conference March 31st-April 2nd designed to "join together activists from numerous political and social movements." Topics for discussion include making animal rights a social justice issue, attacking the beef industry, the promotion of a vegan lifestyle, a presentation by anti-milk activist Robert Cohen, and the use of civil disobedience. This meeting reinforces the fact that nanny groups of all stripes are uniting to take on issues outside of their normal individual agendas.

Reporting on the growing number of overweight Americans, Toyko's leading newspaper points "to the ever-increasing size of the portions served at restaurants as silent testimony to the fact that Americans are eating more than they need." Stateside, the Christian Science Monitor's look at fighting obesity with fad diets sideswipes the restaurant industry: "In recent years, portion sizes in restaurants have increased dramatically, but for what useful purpose?"

Continuing its trend of opposing any and all new technology (in this case, even if it saves lives), Ralph Nader's Public Citizen says, "The legalization of irradiation of our food supply is incredibly irresponsible, given the inadequate testing of effects on consumers' health and nutrition." Nader's nannies make this ridiculous claim despite repeated assertions of irradiation's safety from the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the American Dietetic Association.

The nannies' campaign to link obesity to restaurant portion sizes gets another plug (the fifth one this week), this time in the Providence Journal-Bulletin. "Some of the extra calories we're taking in probably come from eating out," writes reporter Linda Sevelia. Why? "Portions of many popular restaurant items have grown many-fold."

Without any scientific facts, the Boston Globe says there is an "obvious link between the growing popularity of 'supersize' servings in restaurants and grocery stores and the country's weight problem." If left unchallenged, this type of inflammatory rhetoric could quickly turn the hypothetical "link" between fast food and obesity into fact.