Washington: Anti-obesity efforts by 48 US companies, including Wal-Mart Stores and Walgreen, have led to more fresh food in poor neighbourhoods, reduced soft-drink consumption and a jump in vegetable sales, a report says.
One company, Pinnacle Foods, saw a two-month sales increase for its Birds Eye frozen vegetables last year during a $US2 million ($1.95 million) marketing push on the Nickelodeon television channel, part of an initiative related to US first lady Michelle Obama's ''Let's Move!'' campaign.
The report on government alliances with the food industry was produced by the Partnership for a Healthier America, a non-profit outgrowth of Mrs Obama's campaign. US President Barack Obama has raised nutrition standards in schools and sought to persuade businesses to take steps voluntarily to combat obesity.
''We'll see if the changes that are coming about make a meaningful dent in the obesity problem,'' the director of the Rudd centre for food policy and obesity at Yale University, Kelly Brownell, said. ''If the changes don't come about or aren't meaningful, government is going to have to interact with the industry in a different way.''
Wal-Mart has pledged to open hundreds of stores selling fresh produce in under-served urban neighbourhoods. The report said it had completed 53 of at least 275 stores it had promised to build or renovate in or near ''food deserts'' by July 2016.
About 23.5 million Americans live in low-income areas that are more than a mile from a supermarket, Mr Obama's Healthy Food Financing Initiative says. The first lady has made the eradication of food deserts a core part of her campaign.
About 78 million US adults, about a third of the population, and 12.5 million children were obese in 2009-2010, a government report from last year said.
I swear the coli keeps me laughing all day
Baby steps it is...
@ trying to win a war with broccoli over with hot cheetos...