The nation's largest epidemic: Childhood Obesity. Michael Dansinger, MD, has written a letter to Congress, addressing this issue:

American children may be the first generation to have shorter life spans than their parents. Childhood obesity rates have tripled in recent decades, due largely to an environment that has become increasingly saturated with unhealthy, but highly marketed, food products. Obese children are now developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease at an alarming rate, and we cannot expect this to improve unless we make substantial environmental changes. The aggressive and relentless advertisement of nutritionally poor foods to children exploits them and is overwhelming for even the most vigilant parents. Children see 10 food advertisements per hour when they watch TV, mostly for unhealthy foods. In principle, parents can forbid their children to watch TV, but most agree that this approach is too extreme. Our children deserve an environment that promotes good health; it's fundamental to our nation's best interest. Parents don't want unhealthy foods marketed to their children, and the only realistic way to stop this is to enact and enforce laws that offset the economic incentives that have made children the easy prey of food companies. We need a few courageous legislators to resist the food company lobbies and start the nation thinking about banning food advertising to children. It has been done in Europe and elsewhere and should be done in America, too. If future generations of Americans are to be healthy and happy, we must curtail the lax food marketing laws that promote childhood obesity. Let's not turn a blind eye to this crisis! That's my opinion. I'm Dr. Michael Dansinger, Obesity Researcher at Tufts-New England Medical Center and Director of the Tufts Popular Diet Trial.

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