CERUCommercialism in Education Research Unit
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2004 - Non-CERU Publications/Writing
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» Advocacy Groups
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» Popular Press
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» Think Tank/Policy Institute
AMSA No Soda Day
Date:
November 18, 2004
Source:
American Medical Student Association
On November 18, 2004, the AMSA held a national "No Soda" Day where medical students, residents, and
physicians alike spoke out against the detrimental effects of liquid sugar on our children, our country,
and the obesity epidemic.
PDFDate:
October 5, 2004
Author:
Ron Isaac
Ron Isaac, a middle school teacher in New York, writes about the deceptive nature and power of advertising.
Date:
September 30, 2004
Source:
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
Reversing the rapid rise in obesity among American children and youth will require a multipronged
approach by schools, families, communities, industry, and government that would be as comprehensive
and ambitious as national anti-smoking efforts, according to a new report from the Institute of Medicine
of the National Academies.
Date:
September 2004
Source:
Action for Healthy Kids
The excessive rise in poor nutrition, inactivity and weight problems is adversely affecting academic
achievement and possibly costing schools millions of dollars each year. The report calls on schools
to work with partners to take immediate action to address the issue, and points to current best practices
in schools, school districts, and states.
Date:
September 2004
Source:
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
The Institute of Medicine, through the
Food and Nutrition Board and the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, will undertake a comprehensive
study of the science-based effects of food marketing on the diets and health of children and youth in the
United States. This work is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in response
to a Congressional directive.
HTMLDate:
August 25, 2004
Authors:
Matthias B. Schulze, JoAnn E. Manson, David S. Ludwig, Graham A. Colditz, Meir J. Stampfer, Walter C. Willett, and Frank B. Hu
Source:
Journal of the American Medical Association
Higher consumption of sugar-sweetened
beverages is associated with a greater magnitude of weight gain and an increased risk for development of
type 2 diabetes in women, possibly by providing excessive calories and large amounts of rapidly absorbable
sugars.
EPRU fellow Stephen Ball discusses commodification in three social fields: in relation to childhood and
parenting; in relation to social relationships (in education), including our relationship to ourselves;
and more briefly, in relation to knowledge. His discussion, for the 2004 King's College Annual Lecture,
may be thought of as, in-part, a cost-benefit analysis of the increasing use of 'the private' as a means
of delivery of public services, including education.
Date:
June 2004
Authors:
David Foulk and Charles H. Imwold
Source:
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
This report follows a typical boy through his day at school, pointing out the ways that modern school
environments contribute to adolescent obesity. It offers suggestions for how schools can modify their
food selections and physical education programs to encourage healthier student lifestyles.
Date:
April 2004
Authors:
George A. Bray, Samara Joy Nielson, and Barry M. Popkin
Source:
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
This research report notes that the increase in obesity among Americans has coincided with the increased
consumption of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It also notes differences between how HFCS and glucose
are digested, absorbed, and metabolized by the body that suggest that, particularly when it is consumed
in sweetened beverages, HFCS may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain.
Date:
March 2004
Author:
Cathy Hart
Institution:
University of Victoria
This thesis explores the teacher, parent, principal, vice-principal, trustee, and district
administrator perceptions of corporate sponsorship in B.C. public schools.
Parents Beware: SpongeBob Movie Rife With Commercialism
Date:
November 16, 2004
Source:
Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) (Formerly Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children)
Citing the film's promotions with
Burger King, Kellogg's, and Keebler, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) is warning parents
to beware of the excessive and harmful levels of commercialism in the new SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
Date:
October 5, 2004
Source:
Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) (Formerly Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children)
Citing concerns about exploiting children to market toxic products to their families, thirty prominent
children's and environmental organizations sent a
public letter
today to US Youth Soccer (USYS) asking them not to renew their sponsorship agreement with TruGreen/ChemLawn.
WordDate:
July 16, 2004
Source:
Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) (Formerly Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children)
SCEC in conjunction with the Children's Caucus hosted a congressional briefing about what Time Magazine
calls "the burgeoning and increasingly controversial business" of marketing directly to children.
To support Senator Harkin's HeLP America Act, sign the petition.
To support Senator Harkin's HeLP America Act, sign the petition.
Date:
June 9, 2004
Source:
Public Health Institute
The first of four, this policy brief recommends strategies for improving the quality of foods and
beverages available at schools.
Date:
June 9, 2004
Source:
Public Health Institute
The second of four, this policy brief examines the
phenomenon of increased marketing to children in schools and recommends policy to protect children from commercial influences.
Some of the recommendations reference California law specifically, but others are more general.
Date:
June 9, 2004
Source:
Public Health Institute
The third of four, this policy brief examines the
impact on student health of using food as a source of fundraising by schools. It offers examples of
how schools around the country have minimized the sale of non-nutritious food on school property.
Date:
June 9, 2004
Source:
Public Health Institute
The fourth of four, this policy brief calls for a broad approach to
"energy balance" that includes increased attention to policy and environmental changes that promote
healthy eating and increased physical activity in youth. It recommends strategies to be implemented
by public schools.
Date:
June 9, 2004
Author:
Caroline Grannan
Source:
Parents Advocating School Accountability
A resolution addressing the childhood obesity crisis, sponsored by the San Francisco PTA and called "Healthy
Lifestyles for All Children," was approved by a majority of the 2,718 voting delegates at the California
State PTA's 105th annual convention earlier this month in Long Beach, California.
Date:
June 2, 2004
Source:
California Project LEAN
California Project LEAN's website now features "Bright Ideas": examples of successful strategies and programs
that increase student access to healthy foods or physical activity.
Date:
May 2004
Source:
Consumers International
This report outlines major findings from studies conducted on the influence of television food ads on children
in six Asian countries: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Korea.
Date:
March 31, 2004
Source:
The Center for Commercial-free Public Education
These guidelines are designed to help students, parents, teachers, school board members and other concerned
citizens push for policies at the local level that guarantee a commercial-free public school environment.
Date:
March 9, 2004
Source:
Commercial Alert
This petition calls for a global ban on junk food marketing to children twelve years of age and below, and
urges the World Health Organization to incorporate such a ban into its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical
Activity and Health.
Date:
February 2004
Source:
Parents Advocating School Accountability
San Francisco schools
have completed phasing in a bold new plan that may be the nation's most comprehensive
healthy-food policy – a "no empty calories" standard for all foods sold to students
during school. Article includes links to similar health food policies from districts
around the nation.
Choosing Health: Making Healthier Choices Easier
Date:
November 16, 2004
Source:
UK Department of Health
This document sets out the key principles for supporting the public to make healthier and more informed choices in
regards to their health. The British Government will provide information and practical support to get people
motivated and improve emotional wellbeing and access to services so that healthy choices are easier to make.
Date:
October 20, 2004
Source:
Ontario Ministry of Education
When children are exposed to less healthy choices at school, they do not compensate by choosing more healthy choices when away from school. Our schools need to help children learn how to make the best nutritional choices and form good eating habits now to carry them through their lives.
Date:
July 15, 2004
Source:
United States Department of Health and Human Services
A revision
in policy from HHS' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) removes language in the Medicare Coverage
Issues Manual stating that obesity is not an illness. This step allows members of the public to request that
Medicare review medical evidence to determine whether specific treatments related to obesity would be covered
by Medicare.
Date:
May 2004
Source:
Office of Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
The HeLP America Act of 2004 is
designed to reduce health care costs by giving Americans access to better preventive care and consumer
information to promote healthier lifestyles. Rather than focusing on sickness, this comprehensive
approach encourages healthy lifestyles and integrates healthy choices into individuals' daily lives.
Date:
May 22, 2004
Source:
World Health Organization
The WHO adopted this global strategy at its 57th World Health Assembly. It addresses two of the major risk
factors responsible for the heavy and growing burden of noncommunicable disease, emphasizing the need to
limit the intake of certain fats, sugars and salt, and increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, and
levels of physical activity.
Date:
Spring 2004
Author:
Corinna Hawkes
Source:
World Health Organization
As part of its strategy on diet, physical activity and health, the World Health Organization has been
examining a range of interventions that have the potential to play a role in tackling the globally rising
rates of diet-related noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. In this respect, the
regulation of the marketing of food, especially to children, has emerged as one area necessitating further
attention. This review examines the regulatory environment that surrounds the marketing of food (including
non-alcoholic beverages) to children.
High Schools Cap Pop Sales
Date:
December 9, 2004
Author:
Grace Aduroja
Source:
Chicago Tribune
The school board for Naperville Community Unit School District 203 voted recently to institute a pop ban in
an effort to promote more nutritional choices and curb the growing bulge of student waistlines.
Date:
December 1, 2004
Author:
Derrick Z. Jackson
Source:
The Boston Globe
As the federal government
prepares to declare that soda pop can help make you fat, Coca-Cola's CEO, E. Neville Isdell,
proclaims: "Carbonated soft drinks are going to be carriers of health and wellness benefits.
We don't have it now, but we're looking into it."
Date:
November 28, 2004
Author:
Raja Mishra
Source:
The Boston Globe
With the federal government
considering its first-ever warning that soft drinks can cause unhealthy weight gain, soda companies –
longtime icons of the US food industry – are finding themselves increasingly on the defensive,
lobbying federal officials against the warning and publicly arguing with the growing number of
nutrition specialists who say the fizzy, sugary beverages play a major role in America's obesity
problem.
Date:
November 17, 2004
Author:
Ken O'Brien
Source:
Chicago Tribune
Soft drinks will be banned from the lunch menu for high school students starting next fall in Naperville,
IL, School District 203.
Date:
October 20, 2004
Author:
Darren Yourk
Source:
Globe and Mail
The Ontario government is doing away with sugary drinks, chocolate bars, and chips in its elementary school
vending machines.
Date:
October 1, 2004
Author:
Rob Stein
Source:
Washington Post
To fight the epidemic of childhood obesity, the nation must launch a far-reaching campaign enlisting
virtually every aspect of society to reduce the amount of junk food that children eat and get them
exercising more, the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday.
Date:
October 1, 2004
Author:
Katie Cristol
Source:
Cavalier Daily
Coca-Cola has contracts with nearly
half of this country's school districts. There are vending machines in almost 99 percent of high schools,
nearly 75 percent of middle schools and 43 percent of elementary schools. It's no small wonder that the
number of overweight schoolchildren has tripled to 9 million, or 15 percent, since before we started
school in the late 1980s.
Date:
September 30, 2004
Author:
David Kiley
Source:
Business Week
A study sponsored by the federal
government released Sept. 30 says government, business, and families must address the alarming rate of
obesity in children. This conclusion could lead to substantial curbs on advertising to children and
distribution of junk food in public schools.
Date:
September 24, 2004
Author:
Ben Feller
Source:
Associated Press
Expanding waistlines are squeezing
the bottom line of the nation's schools, as poor eating and exercise subtly strip money from education, a
new study suggests.
Date:
September 23, 2004
Source:
Associated Press
Soda, many kinds of candy and fatty
snacks like chips would no longer be sold at New Jersey schools under a proposal announced Thursday by Gov.
James E. McGreevey.
Date:
September 7, 2004
Author:
Scott Parks
Source:
The Dallas Morning News
Former Dallas ISD Superintendent
Mike Moses accepted a $6,000 consulting fee from a Coca-Cola-funded group at the same time the soft drink
company held an exclusive vending contract with the school district.
Date:
August 31, 2004
Author:
Bruce Buchanan
Source:
Greensboro News & Record
Guilford county Schools Superintendent
Terry Grier Received $2,000 and a trip to California – indirectly paid for by companies that want to do
business with the school system.
Date:
August 29, 2004
Author:
Dale Buss
Source:
The New York Times
IET trends aren't just for adults
anymore. A new obsession of America's food, beverage and restaurant companies is thwarting childhood obesity.
With more nutritious products, healthier menus and new activity programs, the companies have begun a big push
aimed at the youngest generation.
Date:
July 30, 2004
Author:
Associated Press
Source:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Soda and junk food vending machines are getting
kicked out of French schools as part of a broad public health bill passed by the parliament Friday
to combat rising obesity among youths.
Date:
July 8, 2004
Author:
Don Michak
Source:
Journal Inquirer
A controversial contract between the state Board of
Education and Services for the Blind and the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of New England is being probed by
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal amid complaints that the state agency is being shortchanged while
administrators look the other way.
Date:
June 10, 2004
Author:
John Brummett
Source:
Arkansas News Bureau
Arkansas Governor Huckabee is inconsistent in his
recommended policies regarding vending machines in schools, opposing them in elementary schools but
favoring them in middle and high schools. When politicians accept gifts from soft drink companies,
it raises doubt about the purity of their judgment.
Date:
May 23, 2004
Author:
Heather Knight
Source:
San Francisco Chronicle
Led by student nutrition director Ed Wilkins, the San
Francisco public school district has instituted a policy to eliminate the sale of "empty calories" to
students. Food sales dipped at first, but have rebounded, debunking the conventional wisdom that school
food programs risk bankruptcy if they take away popular, fatty food.
Date:
May 6, 2004
Author:
Laura Parker
Source:
USA Today
The movie Super Size Me, which opens Friday,
promises to raise the volume in the debate over fast food and obesity. So far, five of eight "obesity"
lawsuits have had some success in state courts, and McDonald's has made instituted changes to its menu.
At the same time, 19 states have passed legislation to ban "obesity" lawsuits, and the U.S. Senate is
considering a similar bill.
Date:
April 22, 2004
Author:
Emma Ross
Source:
Newsday.com
School programs discouraging carbonated
drinks appear to be effective in reducing obesity among children, a new study suggests.
Date:
January 23, 2004
Authors:
Kelly D. Brownell and Marion Nestle
Source:
The New York Times
The Bush administration's critique of
the World Health Organization's global plan to fight obesity closely parallels that of American food companies,
underscoring the need for government to create a wall between itself and the food industry when establishing
nutrition and public health policy.
Date:
January 22, 2004
Author:
Jonathan Fowler
Source:
Newsday.com
The United States,
accused of kowtowing to the food industry, on Thursday welcomed a U.N. plan urging diets
lighter in sugar and fat as ways to reduce obesity and fight heart disease and diabetes,
which kill millions each year.
Date:
January 15, 2004
Author:
Marian Ublman
Source:
Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia School
District plans to impose one of the nation's toughest beverage policies later this year,
banning sodas, iced teas, and other sweetened drinks from all vending machines and school
cafeterias.
Date:
January 6, 2004
Author:
Russ Keen
Source:
Aberdeen American News
Pop and junk food vending machines are
a thing of the past at T.F. Riggs High School in Pierre.
Date:
January 6, 2004
Source:
Canada.com
Ontario is applauding a
move by the Canadian soft-drink industry to voluntarily withdraw soda from elementary schools, but
says that's only the first step towards banning all junk food from schools.
Date:
January 5, 2004
Author:
Associated Press
Source:
The Arizona Republic
Soft drinks should be eliminated
from schools to help tackle the nation's obesity epidemic and pediatricians should work with their local
schools to ensure that children are offered healthful alternatives, the American Academy of Pediatrics says.
Date:
January 4, 2004
Author:
Anne Ryman
Source:
The Arizona Republic
For years, Arizona's
cash-strapped schools have helped fund student activities by raising tens of thousands of
dollars a year through contracts with soft-drink companies.
Date:
January 1, 2004
Author:
Jen Sansbury
Source:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DeKalb County school
vending machines will no longer dispense soft drinks, candy, or other items not included in
the school nutrition program during the school day.
Two New Studies Offer Clues about Obesity, Food Addiction
Date:
May 6, 2004
Author:
Karen McNulty Walsh
Source:
The Bulletin of the Brookhaven National Laboratory
Research results published by a Brookhaven National
Laboratory team that has been investigating the neurological basis of drug addiction reveals that
similar mechanisms may be at play in people "addicted" to food.
Date:
January 2004
Author:
James Guest
Source:
Consumer Reports
James Guest, president of
Consumers Union, points out the alarm all consumers should feel towards the rapidly growing rate
of obesity among children. He points out the efforts of the Commercialism in Education Research
Unit to