Last month, a bill was introduced in the Mississippi Legislature in an apparent effort to tackle Mississippi's obesity problem, which is one of the worst in the nation. House Bill 282 proposes to ban all obese patrons from the state's restaurants. In response to the proposed bill, TOS Executive Vice President Morgan Downey responded, "We have seen many blatant efforts at discrimination against persons with obesity but none as cruel and as harmful. What do the authors think of this bill want to do: starve persons with obesity? Ban them from grocery stores?"

The Mississippi State Department of Health would provide information and materials describing the criteria to help restaurants identify obese customers. In an article on the bill in USA Today on February 11, Nanci Helmich quotes Downey saying the bill "is the most ill-conceived plan to address a public health crisis ever proposed."

Mr. Downey further lambasted the Legislature for hampering efforts at reducing discrimination against obese people. "Efforts like this assume that obesity is a simple matter of personal choice and if the choices are taken away or restricted, the problem will go away. In fact, we know that obesity is a complex, multifaceted problem involving genetics, the environment, and behavior. Simplistic solutions not only don't work, they distract us from addressing core problems."

By weeks end, the Mississippi legislative leaders had pulled the bill.

The Society recently published a slide presentation about weight bias that can be accessed at www.obesityonline .org.

Efforts by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to have fast food restaurants publish nutrition information received support from the Obesity Society. In a letter to the New York City Commissioner of Health, Morgan Downey wrote on behalf of the Society:

"The Obesity Society has been asked whether it believes that the prevention or reduction in obesity would be furthered by proposals to require caloric information on restaurants' menus.

For several years now, governmental and non- governmental agencies have urged the public to eat healthier, reduce their caloric intake, and increase activity levels. Identifying and understanding the caloric content of foods, whether purchased, home grown, or acquired in a restaurant setting, is difficult. Even persons who understand caloric intake and body weight regulation may be frustrated at understanding the content of the food in front of them. Therefore, such labeling may assist weight-conscious consumers, provide an opportunity for parents to educate their children, and is likely to do no harm to consumers.

The Society is aware that definitive scientific studies are not available upon which policy makers, the restaurant industry, and the public may rely to conclude with confidence that such information will reduce or lessen the prevalence or impact of obesity. Nonetheless, the Obesity Society believes that more information about the caloric content of restaurant servings, not less, is in the interest of consumers.

Therefore, the Obesity Society concludes that such policies are in the consumer's best interests and should be implemented and supported by sound research to evaluate their effectiveness."

A lawsuit over the proposed regulation is currently in the courts.

NCQA has just released two new measures for public comment that provide an opportunity to improve quality for obesity assessment and treatment. The proposed measures assess the percentage of adults and children or adolescents who have documentation of BMI or BMI percentile assessment in the medical record. The measure for children and adolescents also requires reporting of documentation of counseling for nutrition and physical activity. Obesity Society members are invited to comment on the measure specifications and rationale for each measure by going to www.ncqa.org. The public comment period will remain open through March 14, 2008.

The Obesity Society has been a member of the NCQA Advisory Committee since 2006. According to Morgan Downey, the Obesity Society expects to strongly support the measure. "By itself it is a modest advance. But if it is enacted, it will mean that thousands of patients in managed care plans, Medicare, and Medicaid will have their BMI measured and tracked and that weight will become a topic for physician-patient interaction."

One of NCQA's most widely recognized quality tools is HEDIS=AE, the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, a nationally standardized set of measures reported by health plans to compare the quality of care.

For more information or if you have questions, please contact Sarah Sampsel at sampsel@ncqa.org

In an unexpected move, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) announced on February 6 that it was stopping a sub-study on intensive blood glucose control that is part of the larger Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) Trial that is currently underway. Concern for the safety of the Trial's participants prompted NHLBI's lead investigators to recommend that all participants receive standard type 2 diabetes treatment rather than the more aggressive blood glucose control approach. Investigators believe that the more intensive therapy may have contributed to a higher than normal rate of death for some of the participants.

The randomized, controlled trial, which began in 2001, enrolled more than 10,000 participants with type 2 diabetes who were at increased risk for cardiovascular disease and who had at least two risk factors, including hypertension, hypercholesteremia, or obesity. Trial participants randomly received either medication to significantly lower their blood glucose levels (A1C less than 6%) or standard type 2 diabetes treatment. Eighteen months before the end of the study, investigators revealed a troubling statistic: the death rate of participants receiving the aggressive therapy increased to 11 in 1,000 from 14 in 1,000 deaths per year. Upon hearing the news, NHLBI elected to discontinue that part of the bigger ACCORD study.

In a statement following the announcement, NHLBI Director Dr. Elizabeth Nabel explained, "A thorough review of the data shows that the medical treatment strategy of intensively reducing blood sugar below current clinical guidelines causes harm in these especially high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes. Though we have stopped this part of the trial, we will continue to care for these participants, who now will receive the less-intensive standard treatment. In addition, we will continue to monitor the health of all participants, seek the underlying causes for this finding, and carry on with other important research within ACCORD."

For more information about the ACCORD trial, visit http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/prof/he art/other/accord/index.htm

The following Obesity Society members recently were awarded Fellow status:

Sarah E. Anderson, PhD
Martin Binks, PhD
Jean-Pierre Chanoine, MD, PhD
Robert V. Considine, PhD
Jeffrey M. Gimble, MD, PhD
Anjali Jain, MD
Kenneth R. Jones, PhD
Simone Lemieux, PhD
Jean E. Schaffer, MD
Rexford S. Ahima, MD, PhD
Tamara B.Harris, MD, MS
Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD

Congratulations to all!

EAST COAST
Kathleen Keller, PhD
Columbia University

Amy E. Freeth, MD, (Columbia University), an Assistant Professor in the department of Endocrinology, will be speaking at the Endocrine Society's Annual Meeting in San Francisco this June. Dr. Freeth's presentation is "Bariatric Problems Following Bariatric Surgery."Amy E. Freeth, MD, (Columbia University), an Assistant Professor in the department of Endocrinology, will be speaking at the Endocrine Society's Annual Meeting in San Francisco this June. Dr. Freeth's presentation is "Bariatric Problems Following Bariatric Surgery."

Stephen Cook, MD, MPH, (University of Rochester Medical Center), Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, has been awarded a one year grant to describe the community prevalence of childhood obesity for Monroe County in upstate New York. This work is being supported by the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, which is funding community-based programs to prevent childhood obesity in the Greater Rochester and Monroe County area.

Weill Cornell's Division of Bariatric and Laparoscopic Surgery is now participating in two NIH sponsored protocols with the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYPI). One Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (LABS3) protocol concerns Psychosocial Issues related to Bariatric Surgery, which includes data on eating behavior in the morbidly obese. A second protocol concerns the Cognitive Effects of Bariatric Surgery, which is being done collaboratively with NYPI and Kent State University. Dr. Gladys Strain who is Director of Research in Bariatrics serves as PI at Weill Cornell on these protocols.

Barbara Rolls (Penn State University) will be honored in April as the recipient of The Centrum Center for Nutrition Science Award. This award, given for recent investigative contributions of contemporary significance to the understanding of human nutrition, will be presented during the Nutrition Awards Program at the Experimental Biology 2008 Annual Meeting.

SOUTH
Steven R. Smith, MD
Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Drs. Annadora Bruce-Keller, Victor Drel, and Cedric Moro joined the Pennington Biomedical Research Center Faculty.

WEST COAST
Judith Stern, PhD
University of California at Davis

California
Donna Spruijt-Metz (University of Southern California) is leading a study for the Comprehensive Center of Excellence in Minority Health on the acute effects of high sugar meals on behavior and mood in overweight minority youth. The study is called FAME (Food, Adolescence, Mood, and Exercise).

Dr. Thomas Robinson (Stanford University) will be leading a training institute on their behavioral treatment program for obese children and adolescents, March 18-21, 2008. For more information visit: http://med.stanford.edu/sprc2/pages/public/ab out.html or contact spwcpinst@stanford.edu.

Marjorie R. Freedman (San Jose State University) received a two-year HEAL grant (Healthy Eating, Active Living) from Kaiser Permanente Northern California to promote environmental changes relating to food and nutrition at San Jose State.

Hawaii
Janet Latner (University of Hawaii at Manoa) helped develop and validate a new measure of obesity stigmatization in children and adolescents, which was published in the December issue of Obesity. Janet along with Dr. Rebecca Puhl, is co-editing a special supplement issue for the journal Obesity on Weight Bias and they are looking forward to its upcoming publication.

Montana
Barbara J. Moore (President and Chief Executive Director of Shape Up America!) is speaking out about the need for better nutrition labeling on alcoholic beverages. A survey conducted for Shape Up America!, gave evidence that the public would prefer more informed labeling when it comes to their alcoholic beverages. Improvements such as the