March 2009

By Charles AbbottWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congress can fight the epidemic of childhood obesity by getting “junk” food out of school stores and snack machines, a parent-teacher group and the American Dietetic Association said on Tuesday.

They backed an overhaul of federal rules so all food sold in schools must meet nutritional standards similar to school lunches. High-fat, high-sugar or high-calorie “competitive” foods now can be sold anytime outside of school cafeterias.

Roughly 17 percent of school-age children are obese, triple the rate in 1980 rate and “an epidemic in the United States,” says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other chronic illnesses.

“The best interests of our children demand that the nutrition standards be modernized,” said Byron Garrett of the National Parent Teacher Association during a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on “reforming nutrition for kids in school.”

National standards are needed, the dietitian group said, so all children “have equal opportunity to a healthy school environment.”

U.S. child nutrition programs like school lunch and the Women, Infants and Children feeding program are due for renewal this year. They cost $21 billion a year.

School meals comply for the most part with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which encourage exercise and more consumption of fruits and vegetables, said Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin.

But sugary drinks, candy and high-fat snacks undermine the investment in good food, Harkin said, because “on an average day only 62 percent of American kids who could do so eat the federally sponsored lunch.”

Sens Richard Lugar and Amy Klobuchar spoke in favor of national standards during the hearing. Sen. Mike Johanns said he disliked heavy-handed regulation and Sen. Saxby Chambliss said physical exercise should be part of the school day.

Reginald Felton of the National School Boards Association noted that some schools rely on snack sales to help cover costs. He contended that students would buy snack food outside school if it was unavailable inside the building.

Susan Neely of the American Beverage Association said that under a 2006 voluntary guideline, “there has been a 58 percent decrease in beverage calories shipped to schools.” She said the guideline should become mandatory. Mars Snackfood US said it supported an update of school nutrition standards and described the work of the nonprofit Alliance for a Healthier Generation to limit fat and sugar content in snack foods.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by David Gregorio)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A program that gives shelter to homeless alcoholics but allows them to keep drinking and not be forced into treatment could save taxpayers millions in public costs, according to a study published on Tuesday.

The study also found that daily alcohol consumption fell by 2 percent per month for those in the shelter.

The results were based on a look at 95 people admitted to a program in Seattle called Housing First from 2005 to 2007. They were compared with others who were still on the street and on waiting lists to get into the shelter.

“Our study suggests that homeless alcoholics who qualify to take part in Housing First can stay out of jails and (hospital) emergency rooms and cost the taxpayer a lot less money as a result,” said Mary Larimer, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington, who led the study.

“We also found that these benefits increase over time and that they are possible without requiring that participants stop drinking. And yet, the longer the participants stay in the housing program, the less they drink,” Larimer said.

The report was published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

After 12 months in the shelter the total public costs relating to the care of the 95 individuals was cut by more than $4 million compared to the year before, the researchers said.

MORE THAN $4,000 EACH

In the year before entering the shelter, those who got in had run up more than $4,000 each per month in costs for jail, detox center use, hospital-based medical services, publicly funded alcohol and drug programs, emergency medical services and the like, the study team said.

But after they entered the housing arrangement, their individual monthly costs for using such services fell to $1,492 after six months and to $958 after a year — a reduction in total costs of more than $4 million, the researchers said.

“Each of them had cost state and local governments an average of $86,062 per year before being housed, compared to an average of $13,440 it costs per person per year to administer the housing program,” Larimer said.

Housing First is a concept employed in a number of cities across the country to address the needs of the homeless generally. Such programs rely on a mix of private and public funding, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

The authors of the study said such programs so far have generally been used for homeless people with severe mental illness and concurrent substance abuse. The Seattle shelter, called 1811 Eastlake, has been controversial because it allows drinking on the premises, the research team said, in a program where meals, shelter and other cost ran $1,120 per person monthly during the study.

The study said the median number of drinks for participants started at 15.7 a day but fell to 14, 12 and 10 a day at after six, nine and 12 months, respectively.

William Hobson, executive director of the group that runs the Seattle project, said the stable housing environment is a factor in reduced drinking. He said there also were discussions of the problem with residents, which leads to reassessment of drinking.

(Editing by Andrew Stern and Bill Trott)

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