Re: Michelle Obama takes on childhood obesity (and product labeling)

Good luck. By coincidence a headline in the Independent newspaper in  
the UK today is "Decade of spending on health messages 'has had little  
effect'"

"People are eating as badly as they were 10 years ago despite the  
spending of hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money on  
advertising campaigns on fruit and vegetables, saturated fat and other  
health issues, the Government’s food watchdog admitted yesterday..."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/decade-of-spending-on-health-messages-has-had-little-effect-1894551.html
__________________________________

Rob Waller
Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
University of Reading



On 10 Feb 2010, at 21:18, Deborah Taylor-Pearce wrote:

>
> I thought Café members might be interested in Michelle Obama's newest
> initiative regarding children's health and nutrition.
>
> She was interviewed by Jim Lehrer of the _PBS HewsHour_ yesterday, 9
> Feb. 2010, with video and text transcript available online at the
> _NewsHour_'s newly-styled website:
>
> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june10/firstlady_02-09.html
>
> Obama mentioned redesigning only the labels for soft drinks in her
> interview:
>
> 	"The beverage industry today just announced that they're
> 	going to change their labels on soft drinks, not just the
> 	ones in stores, but ones in vending machines. So you know,
> 	the goal is to reach out to the industries that have a role
> 	to play and have them come up with solutions that make sense."
>
> But I expect she -- as well as schools and companies and trade groups
> looking to participate in the White House initiative -- might be
> responsive to IDers with other creative ideas about how we remake food
> product labels and related educational materials to "nudge" (in the
> sense of _Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and
> Happiness_, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein) families to change
> behaviors and demand more healthy, community-based food alternatives
> ... for everyone in the U.S., regardless of income or geographic  
> location.
>
> Deborah
> _____
>
> Deborah Taylor-Pearce
> [email protected]
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