links for 2008-01-18

• Economic outlook - Ben Bernanke
• The Economy in 2008 - Dennis Lockhart - FRB Atlanta
• The Mind of the Market - Scientific American
• Great Depression blogging - Paul Krugman Blog
• Huckabee's Magic FairTax - Ezra Klein
• Making predictions is hard - Paul Krugman Blog
• Monetary Policy in a Globalized Economy - Richard Fisher - FRB Dallas
• The case against fiscal stimulus - Econbrowser
• Contact lenses with circuits, lights, possible superhuman vision - EurekAlert
• Inequality and Media Capture - The Monkey Cage
• Reagan and revenue - Paul Krugman Blog

Comments

[anne]

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/6/1738

2001

Food Insecurity Is Positively Related to Overweight in Women
By Marilyn S. Townsend, Janet Peerson, Bradley Love, Cheryl Achterberg, and Suzanne P. Murphy

Abstract

Although individuals with poor food security might be expected to have reduced food intake, and thus reduced body fat and less likelihood of being overweight, these associations have not been adequately studied. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between food insecurity and overweight as measured by body mass index (BMI) using data from the nationally representative 1994–1996 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII). Overweight was defined as BMI >27.3 kg/m2 for women and 27.8 kg/m2 for men. Food insecurity was related to overweight status for women (n = 4509, P < 0.0001), but not for men (n = 4970, P = 0.44). Excluding the 11 severely insecure women, the prevalence of overweight among women increased as food insecurity increased, from 34% for those who were food secure (n = 3447), to 41% for those who were mildly food insecure (n = 966) and to 52% for those who were moderately food insecure (n = 86). Food insecurity remained a significant predictor of overweight status, after adjustment for potentially confounding demographic and lifestyle variables (P < 0.01). In a logistic regression analysis, mildly insecure women were 30% more likely to be overweight than those who were food secure [odds ratio (OR) 1.3, P = 0.005]. Thus, food insecurity had an unexpected and paradoxical association with overweight status among women with a higher prevalence of overweight among the food insecure, and a resulting potential for increased incidence of obesity-related chronic diseases. Given that the rates of both overweight and food insecurity are on the rise, this research area warrants further investigation.

[anne]

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/157/8/780

August, 2003

Lower Risk of Overweight in School-aged Food Insecure Girls Who Participate in Food Assistance: Results From the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement
By Sonya J. Jones, Lisa Jahns, Barbara A. Laraia, and Betsy Haughton

Background

A quarter of US children are at increased risk of obesity-related health problems because of excess weight. The few national studies of child overweight and inadequate household resources available to purchase healthy foods, or food insecurity, have shown inconsistent results. We hypothesized that the inconsistency in these results may be attributed to a differential effect of participation in food assistance programs in food secure and food insecure households.

Methods

Using the 1997 Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement, we compared the risk of a child aged 5 to 12 years being at or above the 85th percentile of body mass index for age in food insecure and food secure, low-income households when controlling for participation in the Food Stamp Program and the national school lunch and breakfast programs as well as other covariates.

Results

We found that food insecure girls who participated in all 3 programs had a 68% reduced odds (odds ratio, 0.32; 95% confidence interval, 0.12-0.77) of being at risk of overweight when compared with food insecure girls in nonparticipating households and controlling for other factors. Girls in food secure households generally had no greater or less risk of overweight if they participated in any or all programs. Boys in both food insecure and food secure households had no greater or less risk of overweight by if they participated in any or all of the programs.

Conclusions

These results support our hypothesis that food assistance programs play a protective role for low-income children's health, particularly in girls in food insecure households.

[anne]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/bu-rfa011508.php

January 15, 2008

Researchers Find Association Between Food Insecurity and Developmental Risk in Children

Boston, MA—Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC), in collaboration with researchers from Arkansas, Maryland, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, have found that children living in households with food insecurity , are more likely to be at developmental risk during their first three years of life, compared to similar households that are not food insecure. This study appears in the January 2008 issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 16.7 percent of all U.S. households with children less than six years of age had food insecurity in 2005, reporting limited or uncertain availability of enough food for an active healthy life. In children aged less than three years, food insecurity has been associated with poor infant health, and the likelihood of hospitalization.

The Children's Sentinel Nutritional Assessment Program (C-SNAP) interviewed caregivers from low-income households with children aged four to 36 months at five pediatric clinic/emergency department sites in Boston, Little Rock, Baltimore, Minneapolis and Philadelphia. The target child from each household was weighed and weight-for-age score was calculated.

In the sample of 2,010 families, the researchers found 21 percent reported food insecurity. The results of the analyses revealed that children from food-insecure households, compared with those from food-secure households, were two thirds more likely to experience developmental risks. Household food insecurity, (with or without the report of family hunger), even in the presence of appropriate weight-for age, is an important risk factor for the health, development and behavior of children less than three years of age.

According to the researchers the clinical and public policy implications of this study are striking. "Providing nutritional and developmental interventions to young children and their families is a proactive step that might decrease the need for later, more extensive interventions for developmentally or behaviorally impaired children of school age," said lead author Ruth Rose-Jacobs, ScD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM and a research scientist at BMC....

[anne]

Lancet is just now running an important series of articles on infant well-being in the initial 2 years of life and the high correlation with well-being in adult years which has long been suspected and taken advantgae of in selected poorer countries such as China and Cuba evidently accounting for longevity that was much beyond the norm for equally poor countries. China and Cuba have for generations had infant care programs easily within the cost of poor countires that should have been models elsewhere.

In this light a longevity of 46 years in Afghanistan should tell us just how developmentally insecure infants are and how devastating the effects of this insecurity are on longevity.

[anne]

http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=76289

Janaury 17, 2008

First Two Years in a Child's Life Key to Adult Development
By IRIN

NEW YORK - The first two years in a child's life are crucial in determining its well-being in adulthood, according to a series of five papers launched in The Lancet on 17 January. Maternal and child under-nutrition in the first two years is the underlying cause of 3,5 million deaths a year, 35 percent of disease in young children and a host of longer-term ills, states the report.

The series finds that poor foetal growth or stunting in the first two years of life leads to irreversible damage, including shorter adult height, lower attained schooling, reduced adult income, and decreased birth weight in offspring.

Moreover, children undernourished in the first two years, who put on weight rapidly later in childhood and in adolescence, are at high risk of chronic diseases related to nutrition, such as high glucose concentrations, hypertension and increased levels of harmful fats in their blood.

Although children at present under study are too young to assess the link between under-nutrition and life expectancy, such an association will probably become apparent in the long term.

"Under-nutrition is the largely preventable cause of over a third – 3,5 million – of all child deaths," said Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal.

"Stunting, severe wasting and intrauterine growth restriction are among the most important problems. There is a golden interval for intervention: from pregnancy to two years of age. After age two years, under-nutrition will have caused irreversible damage for future development towards adulthood."

Targeted interventions ....

[anne]

Mark Thoma has pointed out how the issue of infant mortality in the South can be clouded by focus on the over-weight of women who become pregnant, but as needs to be stressed there is a close link between food insecurity and over-weight in women that is further complicated and added to by lacc of ready access to health care as Medicaid funds are limited. So vulnerable infants have become and will become vulnerable relatively short-lived adults.

Food insecurity and absurdly poor nutritution is astonishing in rich America and lack of ready access to health care adds to the shameful problem.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/health/22infant.html

April 22, 2007

In Turnabout, Infant Deaths Climb in South
By ERIK ECKHOLM

HOLLANDALE, Miss. — For decades, Mississippi and neighboring states with large black populations and expanses of enduring poverty made steady progress in reducing infant death. But, in what health experts call an ominous portent, progress has stalled and in recent years the death rate has risen in Mississippi and several other states.

The setbacks have raised questions about the impact of cuts in welfare and Medicaid and of poor access to doctors, and, many doctors say, the growing epidemics of obesity, diabetes and hypertension among potential mothers, some of whom tip the scales here at 300 to 400 pounds.

"I don't think the rise is a fluke, and it's a disturbing trend, not only in Mississippi but throughout the Southeast," said Dr. Christina Glick, a neonatologist in Jackson, Miss., and past president of the National Perinatal Association.

To the shock of Mississippi officials, who in 2004 had seen the infant mortality rate — defined as deaths by the age of 1 year per thousand live births — fall to 9.7, the rate jumped sharply in 2005, to 11.4. The national average in 2003, the last year for which data have been compiled, was 6.9. Smaller rises also occurred in 2005 in Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee. Louisiana and South Carolina saw rises in 2004 and have not yet reported on 2005.

Whether the rises continue or not, federal officials say, rates have stagnated in the Deep South at levels well above the national average.

Most striking, here and throughout the country, is the large racial disparity. In Mississippi, infant deaths among blacks rose to 17 per thousand births in 2005 from 14.2 per thousand in 2004, while those among whites rose to 6.6 per thousand from 6.1. (The national average in 2003 was 5.7 for whites and 14.0 for blacks.) ...

[anne]

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/04/infant_mortalit.html

April 22, 2007

Infant Deaths and Obesity

Brad DeLong posts the dismal statistics about the increasing infant death rate in the South in recent years. When I read the article, I was struck by how much of the blame for the rise in infant mortality was placed on obesity and hence, I thought, on the individuals themselves for making bad food choices....

I didn't post the article because I thought it placed too much of the blame on personal choices - factors such as obesity - rather than cuts in social programs (which is what Brad focuses on - also, see the accompanying picture to the article which also highlights obesity).

But should we blame personal choices for part of the increase in infant deaths? Did the poor suddenly change their behavior and start eating more and less healthy food, or was the change in the number of overweight people in the poor population a consequence and rational response to cuts in social programs? This helps to put it in perspective and notes that if you are poor, "the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly."

- Mark Thoma

But... but... but... infant mortality rose in *one single year.* The thing that changed between 2004 and 2005 was *not* the number of expectant mothers with full-fledged or gestational diabetes.

- Brad DeLong

Brad is noting that there are two issues here, the level and the rate of change. Obesity is more likely a cause of the level of the infant death rate than of the year to year change in death rates.

His post focused more on the change - under Governor Barbour in Mississippi the infant death rate has actually increased - while this post is related to the high level overall and the upward the trend in obesity recent years.

But as for the article itself, I did think they were claiming the year to year change ("the reversal") was in large part attributable to obesity....

But as I said, and Brad pointed out, it's hard to imagine a large year to year jump in obesity and related diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, and hence hard to attribute the one year change in infant death rates to this factor. However, though obesity itself may not have changed, cuts in social programs providing counseling, health care, etc., for expectant mothers can affect prenatal nutrition and health and thus potentially affect health outcomes which is one of the points Brad was making.

- Mark Thoma

[anne]

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/04/falling_indicat.html

April 23, 2007

Falling Indicators of Human Development in Mississippi
By Brad DeLong

There are 2.8 million people in Mississippi. About 15% of the non-elderly population--make that 350,000--were on Medicaid.

Cut Medicaid enrollments by 50,000, by 1/7.

42,000 babies born in Mississippi each year.

For the share who die to jump from 0.97% to 1.14%... That's a less than 1/3000 chance.

That's worth saying.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/opinion/l26south.html

Infant Deaths: Shame of a Nation

To the Editor:

"In Turnabout, Infant Deaths Climb in South":

When my colleagues and I started a community health center in the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s, we estimated the actual black infant mortality rate in our area at nearly 60 per thousand live births.

The causes were abysmal poverty, wide unemployment, crumbling shacks, outright malnutrition, contaminated water and lack of transportation.

We addressed those problems, in addition to providing desperately needed medical care. The infant mortality rate dropped sharply.

Those causes persist, now worsened by deep cuts in Medicaid and welfare.

The consequence of shredding the social safety net is more dead black (and white) babies. No health service can overcome the effects of social policies that devastate the lives of the poor.

This is not just a health problem; it is a measure of our moral commitment to a fair chance for survival. We should be enraged, and ashamed, that these preventable excess deaths continue, and increase, among us.

H. Jack Geiger, M.D.
Brooklyn, April 25, 2007
The writer was a founding member and national coordinator of the Medical Committee for Human Rights.

[anne]

Evidently the military is now in control, in America.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/18/headlines

January 18, 2008

U.S. Commander in Iraq Sees “Five to Ten Year” Stay
By Amy Goodman

Meanwhile, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq is predicting U.S. forces will remain there for many years. On Thursday, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno told a Pentagon news conference he foresees a U.S. presence of “five to ten years” and possibly longer.

[anne]

Possibly Raymond Odierno is thinking of becoming President, one way or another.