Tag Archives: michelle obama

Food Police! You’re Under Cardiac Arrest!

Posted on January 23, 2011 by
The only cops not at the doughnut shop

A few weeks ago, Judge Henry Hudson of Virginia ruled that the PPACA health reform law  (oft-referred to as Obamacare) was unconstitutional because there was a provision that forced people to buy insurance.  Commenting on his ruling, Judge Hudson was quoted as saying that using the Commerce clause to justify the requirement that everyone purchase health insurance was like giving Congress “boundless” authority to force Americans “to buy an automobile, to join a gym, to eat asparagus.”

What many policy-makers have figured out, however, is that while you may not be able to force consumers to buy asparagus if they don’t want it, there is a potentially equally effective approach that may have the same result:  make it hard or impossible for consumers to buy something they do want: junk food.  Welcome to this installment of Dragnet: Food Police Edition–the story you are about to see is true; the calories have been changed to protect the innocent.  Anything you eat may be used against you.

In a recent Associated Press article entitled, World leaders to discuss junk food ad ban at UN, the U.N. health agency reported that world … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital, Healthy Eating, Preventive Health, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Antidote to the Baconator: Apps for Healthy Kids

Posted on July 18, 2010 by

A quick antidote to the Baconator post: Tim Marklein at Weber Shandwick sent me an article about a cool competition now underway in which GE, the USDA and Michelle Obama have created a challenge to motivate American entrepreneurs, software developers, the public, and students to create an on-line game or tool that can use “fun” to teach kids and/or their parents about how to get kids to exercise and eat healthy. I have to admit–kind of a cool idea that manages to combine health and entrepreneurship. I like it.

I’ll pause for a moment to allow you to digest the irony that today’s method for engaging kids in exercise and healthy eating is to keep the kid sitting in front of their screen even longer. The sound of a kid’s joy long ago metamorphosed from “Wheeeeeeee!” to “Wii!”

Anyhow, the Apps for Healthy Kids challenge was to create either:

  • Games that educate through engaging the user in an entertaining experience, or
  • “Tools” that empower users to access, visualize, sort, mash, track, or otherwise better understand data in ways that will inform user behavior.

In so doing, the develop must … (read the rest)

Posted in Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital, Healthy Eating, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment