Fighting childhood obesity, for a healthier, longer life

If fast-food jingles were multiplication tables, perhaps we'd all be good at math. In the meantime, those ads sure are stuck in the brains of kids. The marketing of ultra-processed food, which accounts for more than 60 percent of calories for children, has coincided with a dramatic increase in childhood obesity across the United States. In 1970, about 1 in 20 children were affected by obesity; today, it's 1 in 5, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . CDC To be clear, there are multiple causes for the rise, including socioeconomic, environmental and lifestyle factors. But when it comes to diet, figuring out what's healthy and what is not can be daunting. "You look at the back of the label and you're like, 'Yeah, that's no good, that's no good …' And it's like, so then, what do you eat some days? It's scary," said Heather Wolfe. She and her daughter, Grace, are enrolled in the YMCA's "Healthy Weight and Your Child" program in Harrisburg, Pa. The program preaches getting healthy the old-fashioned way – eating right and exercising – and focuses on changing the environment and habits of the entire family. Grace says one thing she's learned: "Highly-hydrogenated oils, that's bad for you." In an age of powerful new weight loss drugs, including GLP-1s (not yet approved for children under 12), a crucial question remains: how do we prevent future generations from becoming obese in the first place? In April, FDA Commissioner Dr. …