Children's Health

Gage Middle School Students in L.A. Suburb Fight Back with Kale and Yoga after Being Dubbed California's Fattest Kids

Huntington Park was dubbed the city with the fattest kids in California in 2012, which prompted students and faculty at heavily Latino Gage Middle School in Huntington Park to team up and try slim down the student body's bodies. After an article posted by L.A. Weekly and headlined "Huntington Park ... More >>

Will Mayoral Candidates Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel Take Action to Protect Mothers and Children From Air Pollution?

Another important study about the impacts of air pollution on children was released last week, but don't expect mayoral frontrunners Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel to say or do anything specific about it. In 2010, L.A. Weekly exposed in the cover story "Black Lung Lofts" the dangerous side effects ... More >>

Intimacy issues

House Republicans Introduce Bill To Roll Back Calorie Counts in School Lunches

What's the most pressing thing for Reps. Steve King (R-IA) and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) right now? Jobs? The economy? No, not those, not even working out some Machiavellian scheme to put oil wells on top of every mosque and gay bar in the country. Nope, it's rolling back the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Ki ... More >>

Jamie Lynne Grumet, TIME's Breastfeeding Covergirl, Can't Stop Posing for Creepy Magazine Covers

We love breastfeeding. We especially loved breastfeeding when we were small, bald and toothless. It's a beautiful thing, and no woman should ever be told when or where she can or can't breastfeed. Because when baby hunger strikes, Mother Nature abides, mmk? But what we can't figure out is why Jamie ... More >>

L.A. City Hall Opens New Lactation Room Under Obamacare Mandate

Breastfeeding: So hot right now! While supermoms like TIME covergirl and L.A. resident Jamie Lynne Grumet are fighting the good fight to breastfeed their toddlers in public (through radical nurse-ins called Boobie Paloozas; we kid you not), the female employees and visitors at L.A. City Hall would ... More >>

Boobie-Palooza Comes to L.A. Sunday to Celebrate World Breastfeeding Week

A full-frontal assault is headed toward L.A. this weekend. That's when Boobie-Palooza takes place. It's a celebration of World Breastfeeding Week (yes, there is such a week) and will feature the likes of Ricki Lake, Dr. Yvonne Bohn of Discovery Health's Deliver Me and, of course, Katie Hamilton, th ... More >>

Facebook Censors Kaskade's Body Paint Photo of This Girl

See also: *Rave Standoff in Hollywood: Cops Move in to Disperse Crowds That Came to See DJ Kaskade *Our slideshow: Kaskade @ The Palladium *LMFAO 'Bikini Girl' Says She Was Fired For Being 'Big Boned' Earlier this week EDM DJ and producer Kaskade posted a photo on Facebook from the Miami stop of ... More >>

Huntington Park Has the Fattest Kids in California; Manhattan Beach Has the Skinniest

As we're sure you've heard, childhood obesity levels are not doing so good in America. Though they've leveled off overall, low-income cities are still stuffing over 50 percent of their young with enough French fries to earn them an "obese" Post-It on their forehead. Fattest city in California? That ... More >>

Pizza Isn't a Vegetable, Congressman Insists

Those Democrats. They just won't drop that ridiculous "pizza is not a vegetable" thing. Fox News reports that Rep. Jared Polis, a Democratic congressman from Colorado, has proposed legislation that would end pizza being counted as a vegetable in public school lunches. The SLICE (School Lunch Improve ... More >>

Katie Hamilton's Breastfeeding Sucks Sense Out of LACMA: Museum Apologizes

An L.A. mom whipped out her booby and started breastfeeding at the L.A. County Museum of Art recently, inspiring a hapless "staffer" to tell her to cover up. We call it human-nature performance art. The LACMA guard thought it was too strip club. And so Katie Hamilton and her supporters have taken ... More >>

Majority of Californians Support Soda Tax

Three out of five California voters would support a special tax on soda and soft drinks to fight childhood obesity, according to a new Field Poll. New data collected as part of the Field-The California Endowment Childhood Obesity Prevention Survey found that 48% of participants cited unhealthy eat ... More >>

Food Forward: New PBS Food Show Airs Tonight

When you think of food shows, you're stuck between formulaic cooking contests, bacon-huffing Canadian bozos on YouTube, and the flecks of tartar sauce trapped in Guy Fieri's beard. There's not all that much else. But tonight a new food show debuts on PBS, and it promises (though this is not to say ... More >>

Safeway, Vons Will Stop Selling Ground Beef Containing 'Pink Slime'

The days of "Let them eat pink slime" are over. Today Safeway Inc., the second-largest supermarket operator in the country, said it will stop buying the ammonia-treated beef filler "because of widespread customer concern," MSNBC reports. Since Safeway owns Vons, hamburger sold at Vons will also be p ... More >>

USDA Relents on Pink Slime; Schools Can Opt Out

The people spoke, and they said, "No more pink slime!" And this time, the feds actually listened, kind of. Last Monday, we told you how the U.S. Department of Agriculture was planning on shipping out 7 million pounds of "pink slime" to be added to the lunches of unknowing urchins at public school ... More >>

Uproar Over 'Pink Slime' in School Lunches

Remember pink goo? Let us refresh your memory. Pink goo, aka pink slime, is scraps of meat and connective tissue swept up from slaughterhouse floors that are doused with a pink chemical to kill dangerous pathogens -- since they've been, you know, on the floor -- then blended together into a substanc ... More >>

Magic Straws: A Chocolate Milk Alternative

Just when you thought nothing could be as simple and plain (or boring) as unflavored milk, Magic Milk Straws come along. While the magic is debatable, we can imagine that the straws enchant calcium-conscious parents and their kids. Stuffed with tiny candy-like pieces in pink, brown, and white, the s ... More >>

Lights. Camera. Cure. The Hollywood Dance-a-Thon

Junk Food in Schools Not Linked to Childhood Obesity

Fat kids everywhere, rejoice! There's no link between childhood obesity and junk food sold in schools, a new study has found. Cities all over the country have been busy banning the sale of sweet and salty snacks in public schools in a bid to fight childhood obesity (thanks, Mrs. Obama). But a new ... More >>

Melinda Star Guido: Third Smallest Baby Ever Born Thrives at L.A. County-USC Medical Center (Video)

County-USC Medical CenterMelinda is here to stay.​The fate of summer baby Melinda Star Guido was so tenuous that the world, outside her family, wasn't really aware of the premature infant's existence until this week. That's when officials at L.A. County-USC Medical Center announced that, yes, ... More >>

Congress to USDA: Pizza is So a Vegetable, Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah

Ellie Strikes Weird/flickrA vegetable lurks within.​Late Monday, Congress released the final version of a bill responding to new school lunch standards proposed by the USDA. The Obama administration wanted to make school lunches more healthful, cutting back on the endless procession of potat ... More >>

Cry Baby Lane VIDEO: Watch Nickelodeon's 'Banned' Halloween Movie Online

Viacom (Please don't sue me?)Scaredy cat.​So much hullabaloo, this Halloweentime, about the revival of Nickelodeon's fabled turn-of-the-century horror flick "Cry Baby Lane." According to Reuters, it'll be airing this Oct. 31 for the first time since it debuted in 2000. (Once at 12 a.m., and on ... More >>

Active Child on His Debut Album, Rent-to-Own Harps, and Breaking into Churches

Brent MartinsActive Child​Harps by and large are pretty unpopular instruments. Why? Well, it's not easy to rock out on a harp. They're hard to play with your teeth. You can't pound on them, and there is no chance of an Air Harp Competition starting anytime soon. However, if you're not looking ... More >>

Lousy School Lunches

Melrose Elementary Kids Get Their Hands Dirty with Woolly School Gardens and Chef Andrea Cavaliere El Cholo Feeds Teachers Tonight

J. RitzChef Andrea Cavaliere from Cecconi's and schoolyard gardeners in training.​ There must be statistics, somewhere, detailing the amount of chain link fencing in the possession of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It seems entirely possible that the sum of the practical-yet-dreary ... More >>

School Food Blooming Roll, a Korean Chain, Now Stateside at MaDang Courtyard

Esther HahnSchool Food's Kimchi Noodles, "Jjol Jjol Myun"​ Restaurant openings in Koreatown seem to follow a distinct pattern: first, grow into a popular, multi-location chain in Korea, then open an outpost in L.A. That has been the case for the successful restaurants Yu Chun Chic, Chil Bo My ... More >>

Respite From Continuous Stream Of Bad News: 40 States Fatter Than California

Mississippi on the left; we're on the right.​ A new report from from the Trust for America's Health confirms it: We're not as unhealthy as the rest of really unhealthy America. Sure, we're pretty unhealthy, but for now let's take in the good news and celebrate with a Double Down. California ... More >>

Over the Weekend: Active Child and Rocco DeLuca at the Bootleg Theater

Michael CamachoActive Child​ The two men billed at the Bootleg Theater last night could not be more different. Rocco DeLuca's blues set contrasted sharply to Active Child's harp-filled synth pop. It was almost as if a psych grad student was revealing the results of a test that he had being con ... More >>

Michelle Obama Has Sunday Supper at Lucques Monday Dinner at Mozza

APMichelle Obama talking childhood obesity​Thanks to the good people at Obama Foodorama, we've discovered that Michelle Obama arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday, whereupon the sustainable-food conscious First Lady took her daughters to Lucques in West Hollywood for Sunday supper. Said the restau ... More >>

Squid Ink Retraction: Jennifer Aniston Denies Baby Food Diet

GerberHere comes the airplane, and it's coming to take your dignity​It sounds like we owe Jennifer Aniston an apology. We ran a story a couple of weeks ago stating that she was going on a baby food diet to lose weight. It turns out that those claims were, in fact, not true. "I've been asked la ... More >>

Slow Food's Time For Lunch Campaign Aims to Get "Real Food" in Schools

Say the word "malnutrition" and the image that comes to mind is probably the shirtless 3rd World child with a bulging belly and large, sad eyes that you've seen for years on TV. But the plump-cheeked American kid may be suffering from malnutrition too--though perhaps not from lack of food. One in f ... More >>