Speaking at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting on Nov. 17, Kelly Brownell, Ph.D., of Yale University said a focus on children might provide a politically savvy opening to developing reforms against the obesity epidemic.

“Children are to the obesity crisis what secondhand smoke has been to tobacco,” Brownell said.

According to Harold Goldstein, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, there has been a fourfold increase in obesity among children in the past 40 years.

Researchers are still debating whether the dramatic rise is mostly due to changes in personal behavior or a “toxic environment” of low-cost, high-fat foods and less exercise, “but to the extent that it is the environment, new public policy is required,” Goldstein said.

Junk food advertising aimed at children is a particularly vexing problem facing parents and public health officials, according to Margo Wootan, D.Sc., of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Wootan called for Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services to work on a bill that would set advertising standards for limiting the kinds of food that could be marketed to children.

Similar restrictions already apply to alcohol and tobacco advertising, but “the food industry has basically been issued a free pass to our hearts and minds,” Brownell said.