Colorado considering trans-fat ban in schools

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Michael

I hope they follow through:

The nation’s leanest state is taking aim at junk food in school cafeterias as it considers the nation’s toughest school trans-fat ban.

A Colorado House committee was scheduled to hear a bill Thursday to forbid any trans-fat in school food — not just the food served through regular cafeteria lunches.

That would mean vending machines, after-school bake sales and popular “a la carte” items on lunch lines such as ice creams or pizza would have to be produced without artery-clogging trans fats.

This would constitute one of the broadest bans in the nation. I fully support it. There is no reason we should be practically trying to produce unhealthy children. It isn’t merely the improvement of their minds that should be our concern.

Colorado has a decent track history of creating good public healthy policies. It also is usually in the top ten in income, so when that is coupled with its expansive outdoor recreational options, the results are generally positive. For instance, as the article states, Colorado is the “leanest” state in the Union. It still has an incredible 19% obesity rate, but this is pretty decent by American standards. (When looking at other health factors, New England tends to dominate the positive ranks.)

I hope to see more aggressive steps by Colorado in the future. It isn’t a polarized state in the eyes of the nation like a Mississippi or a California is, so it has a real chance to be a leader in health.

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Big Surprise?

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Michael

A smoking ban in Colorado lead to a sharp decrease in heart attacks.

A smoking ban in one Colorado city led to a dramatic drop in heart attack hospitalizations within three years, a sign of just how serious a health threat secondhand smoke is, government researchers said Wednesday. The study, the longest-running of its kind, showed the rate of hospitalized cases dropped 41 percent in the three years after the ban of workplace smoking in Pueblo, Colo., took effect. There was no such drop in two neighboring areas, and researchers believe it’s a clear sign the ban was responsible.

The study suggests that secondhand smoke may be a terrible and under-recognized cause of heart attack deaths in this country, said one of its authors, Terry Pechacek of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least eight earlier studies have linked smoking bans to decreased heart attacks, but none ran as long as three years. The new study looked at heart attack hospitalizations for three years following the July 1, 2003 enactment of Pueblo’s ban, and found declines as great or greater than those in earlier research.

“This study is very dramatic,” said Dr. Michael Thun, a researcher with the American Cancer Society.

One can only wonder why cigarettes are still legal.

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