Discussion on:

Junk food does not cause child obesity? Is that so?

Companies do give out samples. They are looking to put their products in potential consumers' hands. They wouldn't do it if it didn't work one of the place that always worked is "Get Official Samples" search online

So fattening foods don't make you fat? I wonder who funded this study?

The researcher is from Penn State, but she probably conducted the study with a grant from private industry, and I'd bet a week's pay that it was one of the junk food processors.

All research done in the U.S. is now tainted by private money and suspect of producing skewed results. It's a tragic shame.

An old joke goes "If you squeeze a statistic hard enough, it will confess to anything" (or said differently, you get what you measure)

I found this article confusing:
The study was from K-8 grades yet the researchers findings are only being reported for 5-8? Why?

The lead on the study says ???Schools only represent a small portion of children???s food environment." This suggests the researchers think the study results less then valid given the variables not taken into account.

"The study indicated that the presence of such foods in schools are not the sole cause for childhood obesity" Was uncovering the "sole cause" the aim of the study?

The article argues against the findings of the study (that eating habits are fixed by middle school) "hoping" that the presence of healthier foods will somehow lead to better eating choices. There is so much more involved in food selection that the suggestion of better choices happening by the presence alone of better food options is wishful thinking at best. A young person's entire environment needs to be addressed daunting as that may seem. There are many good people taking on this issue and the best of them, in terms of results, involve both educating the students AND their families together. A labor/time intensive task indeed!

Whenever someone talks about the childhood obesity epidemic, it always makes me wonder how many of these kids are on some kind of medication that could be causing this, since weight gain tends to be an "acceptable" side-effect in many medications. I know this firsthand battling this problem with seizure medications when I was little. I was on this medication for about a decade, and about 6 months after I went off of the stuff, my overweight body had shrunk down to about half the size it was before, with no other changes in my diet or exercise.

it's diet an exercise drugs go in the body as easy as a mac chez, doing nothing but move in daily life is not exercise. But the main problem is truth in education.

Junk food has to be a major contributor to all obesity but just as important must be the lack of exercise. Not formal exercise but the normal running around which those of us used to do on a daily basis right up until the mid 80s. The 'fear' of what MIGHT happen to children outside the home has led to something which DOES happen. They lose social skills, many become indolent and/ or anti social, mistrustful of adults especially men and of course, FAT and subsequently unhealthy.

So not just junk food then?

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