Inside these posts: Obesity

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McDonald’s CEO attacks children’s food police

From the Financial Times | The chief executive of McDonald’s has described critics of the company who have tried to curtail the sale of Happy Meals aimed at children as “food police” and accused them of undermining parents in making decisions for their families, in an interview with the Financial Times

“We’ll continue to sell Happy Meals,” said Skinner adding that the new rule “really takes personal choice away from families who are more than capable of making their own decisions”. Get the full story>>

General Mills cutting sugar in cereal again

General Mills Inc. is lowering the amount of sugar in its children’s breakfast cereals to no more than 10 grams per serving from 11 grams a year ago, the latest move from a U.S. foodmaker to address childhood obesity.

The step-down in sugar by General Mills, the maker of Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Trix cereals, is a move closer to its year-old goal to reduce to single-digit levels the number of grams of sugar per serving in all of its cereals advertised to children under 12. Get the full story »

San Francisco mayor vetoes kids’ meal toy ban

San Francisco’s mayor has vetoed legislation that would ban toys from fast-food children’s meals, though it’s still expected to become law. Get the full story »

FDA panel to make call on Meridia today

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel will decide Wednesday whether the diet drug Meridia will remain on the market amid calls that it be removed. And on Thursday, another drug, known as lorcaserin, is up before an advisory committee where its developer will face questions from panelists and a possible recommendation for agency approval.

Corn syrup makers want sweeter name: Corn sugar

The makers of high fructose corn syrup want to sweeten up its image with a new name: corn sugar. The bid to rename the sweetener by the Corn Refiners Association comes as Americans’ concerns about health and obesity have sent consumption of high fructose corn syrup to a 20-year low.

The group plans to apply Tuesday to the Food and Drug Administration to get “corn sugar” approved as an alternative name for food labels. Get the full story »

TV ad blames McDonald’s for heart disease

Ad showing corpse holding a hamburger. (PCRM ad)

McDonald’s Corp. is the target of a new television commercial set to air in Washington, D.C., Thursday that blames the burger giant for heart disease.

In the commercial, produced by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a woman weeps over a dead man lying in a morgue. In his hand is a hamburger. At the end, the golden arches appear over his feet, followed by the words, “I was lovin’ it,” a play on McDonald’s longtime ad slogan, “I’m lovin’ it.” A voiceover says, “High cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian.” Get the full story »

FDA urged to pull Abbott diet drug Meridia

The prescription diet drug sibutramine, sold under the brand name Meridia, should be taken off the market because it raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes in some patients, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said Wednesday.

Those risks, published in January on a government clinical-trials Web site and now in full in the journal, outweigh the modest benefits of the medication, said Dr. Gregory Curfman, the journal’s executive editor and lead author of an editorial that accompanied the study.

FDA panel to review Abbott’s Meridia Sept. 15

Abbott Laboratories’ weight loss drug Meridia will be reviewed by an advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 15, the company said Friday. Get the full story »

‘Silent Bob’s’ barrage squeezes airlines on obesity

KevinSmith.jpg

By Julie Johnsson | Director Kevin Smith’s Twitter-fit during the weekend highlights one uncomfortable reality of U.S. airline flying: airlines have less leeway to accommodate obese passengers at a time when Americans are getting fatter.

Kevin Smith at the Chicago Film Festival
in 2008. (Nuccio DiNuzzo) >>

In a barrage of profane tweets and a podcast, Smith expressed outrage that he was bumped from a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank, Calif., after the crew determined he was too large to fit in a single seat.

Get the full story »