Barry Popkin was featured in The Guardian this week in an article about the rise of snacking and ultra-processed food consumption in African and Asian countries. He drew on his years of research on the Nutrition Transition, the rising double burden of malnutrition, and the global spread of ultra-processed foods.
On Thursday, Oct. 6, Barry Popkin, PhD, W. R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, delivered a keynote address at the 38th Annual Meeting of the German Obesity Society. In his talk entitled Large-scale regulatory and fiscal policies for tackling obesity and creating healthier diets,he spoke […]
On Thursday, Sept. 29, Dr. Barry Popkin testified at a special U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) public meeting in support of policies to improve the American diet and diet-related diseases. He joined six other consumer, research, government, and industry representatives who were invited to comment before an Independent Expert Panel as part of an […]
New analysis led by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Barry Popkin, PhD, shows that obesity plays a major role in the severity of consequences experienced by those who become infected with the coronavirus. Popkin, W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Nutrition at the UNC Gillings Global School of Public Health, is lead author of “Individuals […]
New research finds that Mexico’s 10-percent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), implemented in 2014, could result in meaningful weight control for the country’s children and adolescents, particularly in those who had been high consumers of the beverages before the tax. Barry Popkin, PhD, is a co-author on “Body weight impact of the sugar-sweetened beverages tax […]
A new approach is needed to help low- and middle-income countries reduce obesity and undernutrition at the same time as the issues become increasingly connected, according to the first paper in a four-paper report published in The Lancet. “We are facing a new nutrition reality where major food system changes have led the poorest countries […]
Barry Popkin was featured on two episodes of the Policy 360 podcast with Kelly Brownell from Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy this month. Listen to Popkin & Brownell discuss the history, rationale, best options, and successes of soda taxes in Episode 13. Listen to their discussion of the Nutrition Transition over time and the […]
A Thought Leader interview on News Medical with Barry Popkin features information about sweeteners in processed foods, regulatory efforts and initiatives, and predictions for the future of food in our world. What do you think the future holds for the global diet? There’s two issues here. The current future, the way the global diet’s going […]
A new article in The Guardian, titled Americans cutting calorie intake but junk food proves a hard habit to kick, features UNCFRP research from a January article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and commentary by Dr. Barry Popkin. The downturn in calorie intake is not so much a watershed in the fight against obesity […]
UNCFRP research and comments by Dr. Barry Popkin are featured in the New York Times story by Margot Sanger-Katz, Americans Are Finally Eating Less, published July 24, 2015. The article discusses the gradual decline of calories eaten by Americans over the past several years: There is no perfect way to measure American calorie consumption. But three […]
Release from UNC Gillings School of Public Health – September 17, 2014 (CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) 16 of the world’s largest food and beverage producing companies pledged to help reduce obesity of American families with children two to 18 years old by pledging to eliminate 1 trillion calories from the products these companies sold in the […]
A recent article in the New York Times highlighted research findings from a CDC report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed a significant decrease in obesity rates among young children (ages 2 – 5) from 13.9% to 8.4% between 2003-04 and 2011-12. This drop in obesity rates is a good sign. Barry Popkin […]
Barry Popkin, PhD is featured in UNC’s most recent University Gazette; in an article titled Unlikely path led economist to a life of global public health, written by Courtney Mitchell. The first time Barry Popkin visited Chapel Hill, he was an economist and political activist passing through town in the late 1960s, working on desegregation and social change. He […]
Nanci Hellmich writes, in a USA Today article titled Critics attack Coke’s anti-obesity ad: A new Coca-Cola ad, which encourages people to come together to fight obesity, is drawing fire from consumer advocates and obesity experts. The two-minute video,appearing Monday night on several national cable networks, talks about the company’s range of beverages and how the […]
The Economist’s Special Report: Obesity, discusses the part played by food companies and industry in the fight against flab – highlighting various approaches to creating and marketing “healthier” products, and the challenges from the public and shareholders in doing so. The upcoming HWCF Evaluation baseline report is mentioned, headlining Dr. Barry Popkin, who “will judge […]
Released in HBO Documentary Films and the Institute of Medicine in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente present “The Weight of the Nation”. The centerpiece of THE WEIGHT OF THE NATION campaign is the four-part documentary series, each […]