European study reinforces importance of eating breakfast for children’s health

The message that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ is familiar to many of us. And now a European study of Cypriot children has revealed that choosing the right kind of breakfast each morning can have a direct impact on their weight and overall health.

Healthy lunchbox challenge helps influence healthy eating habits in children

During the school year, 21 million children receive free or reduced-price lunches, yet less than 10% of those children participate in the Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program. This discrepancy places responsibility for food choices during the summer on parents.

Chemicals in food packaging ‘may be harmful to human health’

Many of the synthetic chemicals involved in packaging and storing the food we eat can leak into it, potentially harming our long-term health, say environmental scientists in a paper published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.Although some of these chemicals are regulated, people come into contact with them almost every day through packaged or processed foods.

Predicting mercury contamination in the marine food chain, via coastal water, not sediment

A Dartmouth-University of Connecticut study of the northeast United States shows that methylmercury concentrations in estuary waters — not in sediment as commonly thought — are the best way to predict mercury contamination in the marine food chain.