January 25, 2012, by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, Chicago Tribune

Confused about which carbohydrates you should be eating?
Welcome to the club.
“It’s the biggest lack-of-consensus issue in the U.S. diet today,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. “We don’t have a standard method for assessing their quality.”
Carbohydrates, the most common of the three energy sources we get from food (the others are fat and protein), reside in the vast majority of our food, prominently in grains, vegetables, legumes and fruits. They are essential to good health — …

January 25, 2012, Houston Chronicle
School lunches, long saddled with an unhealthy reputation, are getting a makeover.Instead of salt-doused fried foods, highly processed white bread and sugar-laden desserts, cafeteria trays will be carrying whole wheat pizza, leafy green and orange vegetables and fresh fruit.The changes, announced Wednesday by first lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, mark the first major nutritional adjustment to the $11 billion school meal program in 15 years.
Under the new guidelines, which were directed by the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, schools must limit calories, trans fat and sodium, …

January 17, 2012, Los Angeles Times, Shari Roan
After a 30-year, record-shattering rise, U.S. obesity rates appear to be stabilizing.New statistics cited in two papers report only a slight uptick since 2005 — leaving public health experts tentatively optimistic that they may be gaining some ground in their efforts to slim down the nation.Many obesity specialists say the new data, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are a sign that efforts to address the obesity problem — such as placing nutritional information on food packaging and revising school lunch menus — are …

 January 16, 2012, Reuters, Chicago Tribune
Feeding preschoolers smaller portions of the main dish at lunchtime means they’ll eat more fruit and vegetables on the side and fewer total calories, according to a new study.Researchers said the finding may give parents one extra strategy to encourage youngsters to eat more greens, as childhood obesity rates continue rising and research suggests that kids lag well behind guidelines for fruit and veggie consumption.With main courses, “you need to be careful and use the age-appropriate serving,” said Sara Sweitzer, a nutrition researcher from the …

January 16, 2012, Sean Poultier, DailyMail Online
Nutrition therapists have been condemned as quacks and accused of putting the health of the sick – including those suffering from breast cancer – at risk.
An industry has grown up based on the concept that ‘food doctor’ nutritionists can cure patients’ ills and allergies through diet.
However at least some of the practitioners, who charge up to £80 for a consultation, are providing advice that could harm health, a study by the consumer watchdog Which? found.
Healthy: But nutrition therapists’ recommendations could be harming patients, an …