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So you don't let your kids drink Coke at home or eat Ho-Hos or Twinkies, but guess what?  They're exposed to these and other commercial brands every day at school. According to newswise.com, " Most students in elementary, middle and high schools are exposed to food commercialism (including exclusive beverage contracts and the associated incentives, profits and advertising) at school." Schools are desirable marketing areas for food and beverage companies, although many of the products marketed to students are nutritionally poor, a new study reports. The study found that, in  2012, 2.9 percent of elementary school students attended schools with  exclusive beverage contracts (EBCs), incentive programs,  compared with 10.2 percent in 2007; 49.5 percent of middle school and 69.8 percent of high school students attended schools with EBCs in 2012 compared with rates of 67.4 percent and 74.5 percent, respectively, in 2007. For food vending, 24.5 percent of middle scho...

There's another reason not to switch out the chips and Oreos for bananas and broccoli.  According to a new study , eating healthy costs more about $550 a year. Cary Polis reports at The Huffington Post that healthy foods cost $1.50 a day more the other stuff.  Doesn't sound like much, but when you add it up over a year -- well, you can see why people who don't have much money aren't exactly racing to Whole Foods. "Even categories such as snacks/sweets and grains also cost more for healthier options, at $0.12 and $0.03 respectively," she reports. No significant price differences were seen between healthier and less healthy soda and juices.  The biggest price differences were in meat and protein, with prices an average of 29 cents higher per serving than the unhealthier choice. But don't be quick to run to McDonald's, either. "The study authors caution that the $1.50 per day conclusion is based on comparing a very healthy diet -- such as one r...

Debit cards can make your kids fat.  Really.  It sounds ridiculous but a new study has shown that people, even kids, and alas I'm in here, too, make more frivolous choices when they use a debit card. To expedite long lunch lines and enable cleaner accounting, about 80 percent of schools use debit cards or accounts that parents can add money to for cafeteria lunch transactions, write David Just and Brian Wansink, co-directors of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs, according to newswise.com. “There may be a reason for concern about the popularity of cashless systems,” the Website quotes researchers. “Debit cards have been shown to induce more frivolous purchases or greater overall spending.” Researchers compared purchases at school cafeterias that use debit-only systems with those that accept debit or cash. They found that students in first through 12th grades at debit/cash cafeterias consumed about 721 calories for lunch compared with...

It worked with cigarettes.  Now some are thinking it may work for food -- tax those who eat too much. Well, you're not taxing the people, per se, but the calories they eat. A story today at The Washington Post notes that "an increase in the price of a calorie regardless of its source would improve obesity outcomes,” according to a working paper that three researchers prepared for a private, nonprofit bureau, according to Peter Whoriskey. The main culprit for one out of three Americans being fat or obese?  Low food prices, Whoriskey reports.  If we raised the taxes on sugary drinks, fast food and junk food, would people stop buying it, as they did cigarettes? No one quite knows, but could you really tax something people need to live?  I suppose you could say we don't need Big Macs or giant Slurpees but the fear is that raising the prices on some foods probably would raise them on all, like fruits and vegetables, too, making them too expensive for many to buy, ...

We knew it all along.  Ads do lead people to do things and now a new study has proved that cigarette ads do, indeed, lead teens to smoke. Movies feature fewer people smoking these days than in the past, and while you still don't see an actor walk into a party or restaurant and the first thing they do is light up a cigarette, but the cigarettes are still there, and they're still considered cool. My own mom began smoking when she was 11 (and this was back in the 1930s) because her best friend did, and while my mom was able to quit in her 70s, her friend went on smoking -- and hacking, even through emphysema -- until she died in her mid-80's. I was lucky.  The smell of smoke always filled our house and I couldn't stand it, or the sight of all those ashtrays (though my mom was a clean smoker, and emptied them almost as quickly as they were filled).  As a result, I've chosen never to smoke and am probably the only living person the planet who has never held a ci...