PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Dr. Pasquale Rummo, Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine
1:50:56
·
130 sec
Dr. Pasquale Rummo, an associate professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, testifies in support of the proposed legislation to improve nutrition standards for children's meals in restaurants. He presents research findings on the impact of such policies on food purchasing behaviors and highlights the inadequacy of existing policies.
- Children's meals often contain excess calories, sodium, and saturated fat, with fast food comprising 15% of children's daily energy intake in the US.
- Research shows that restrictions on products like flavored milk and juice serving sizes could lead to parents purchasing healthier items for their children.
- Parents generally support such legislation, but the effectiveness depends on how healthy beverages are classified.
Pasquale Rummo
1:50:56
Hi.
1:50:57
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
1:51:00
My name is doctor Pasquale Rameau.
1:51:01
I'm an associate professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
1:51:07
I conduct scientific research that informs policies and public health programs like this seeking to support healthy dietary behaviors.
1:51:13
And one area of my focus specifically is evaluating how policies like this, mandating changes to restaurant menus impacts food purchasing behaviors.
1:51:21
So I support the proposed legislation for a few reasons.
1:51:24
The majority of children's meals contain excess calories, sodium, and saturated fat relative to expert nutrition recommendations, and that's a problem because fast food comprises about 15% of of, children's daily energy intake in the US, and 1 in 3 kids is getting fast food on any given day.
1:51:41
So in addition, existing policy options for addressing restaurant food intake among children are are, largely inadequate because nutrition standards specified in these laws do not meet expert nutrition standards for, specifically for kids' beverages and meals.
1:51:57
And also, we see that compliance with a lot of these beverage laws in the US is low, suggesting that modifications and extensions are are merited.
1:52:05
And then more specifically related to my research, I do a lot related to, research promoting healthy behaviors, including nudges and default options for parents and caregivers of young children, especially in including parents and caregivers with lower income.
1:52:20
And what we found briefly is that restrictions on products like flavored milk and, serving sizes of juice could contribute to, parents purchasing more healthy items for their children and meals from restaurants specifically in a way that the existing legislation doesn't support, previous beverage default laws, and that parents and caregivers too are likely to support such legislation in general.
1:52:43
And, and we find that when given the choice of beverages, different healthy beverages on children's menus, parents may, sorry, any when given the choice of any type of beverage, parents may order other unhealthy beverages for their children in lieu of soda, even with some of the existing paradigms like sweet tea or lemonade, suggesting that the suggestion of these policies, depends on how we classify them as healthy.
1:53:05
Thank you.
