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March 12, 2014
Page 9
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Rallying Help for Young Males
The president’s
inspiring
announcement
M arc H. M orial
I was on hand at the
W h ite H o u se la st
month for one of the
most inspiring and im
p o rtan t P re sid en tial
announcements in re
cent history.
In the aftermath of the killings
of Trayvon Martin and Jordan
Davis, and in response to data
showing how badly the odds are
stacked against millions of boys
and young men of color in the
United States, President Obama
k ic k e d -o ff “ M y B ro th e r’s
Keeper,’’ an unprecedented pub
lic-private initiative aimed at im
proving life outcomes and ad
dressing opportunity gaps for the
by
nation’s most vulnerable popu
lation.
The President made the an
nouncement before an audience
o f young males of color and a
coalition oCgovernment, busi
ness, civic and philan
th ro p ic lead ers. I w as
proud to be there to repre
sent the National Urban
League.
In unusually personal
terms, President Obama
spoke about his own struggles
with drugs and alienation as a
young boy growing up without a
father. He called on all Ameri
cans to do more to improve the
prospects for young males of
color who are less likely to gradu
ate from high school and more
likely to be unemployed or end
up in jail than any other group in
America.
Framing the initiative as both
a moral and economic impera
tive, President Obama has done
what Congress has failed to do
over the past five years, con
vene a diverse and bipartisan
coalition of Americans commit
ted to targeted help for commu
nities and populations most in
need.
A t the h e a rt o f the M y
B rother’s K eeper initiative is
a com m itm ent from a group of
businesses and large and small
foundations who have pledged
at least $200 m illion over the
next five years, on top of the
$ 150 m illion they have already
invested to test and expand
proven strategies for im prov
ing the life prospects of young
m ales of color. The President
has also form ed an interagency
federal task force to direct this
effort.
As the National Urban League
M ovem ent has asserted for
years, we know what works:
early childhood education, stron
ger pathways to college and the
world of work, alternatives to
zero-tolerance discipline policies,
shutting down the school-to-
prison pipeline, more guidance
from fathers and mentors, and
the courage and determination
of young males of color them
selves to reject negative stereo
types, make good choices and
succeed.
The need for this initiative is
clear. D ata show s that boys
and young men of color, re
g ardless o f socio-econom ic
background, are disproportion
ately at risk throughout the jour
ney from their youngest years
to college and career, includ
ing large disparities in reading
proficiency, em ploym ent, and
involvement in the criminal ju s
tice system.
These young men are more
than six tim es more likely to be
victim s o f m urder than their
w hite peers and account for
alm ost h alf o f the co u n try ’s
m urder victim s each year. As
the P resident said, “These sta
tistics should break our hearts,
and they should com pel us to
act.’’ I agree and I com m end
President O bam a for his lead
ership in tackling this problem.
“My B rother’s K eeper” is
an inspiring exam ple of what
we can do when we transform
words into action and coalesce
around com plex issues with a
com m itm ent to changing lives.
But, there is still much to be
done as we w ork together,
across the public-private-non
profit spectrum , to drive this
initiative forw ard. The oppor
tunity is before us, and so is the
will.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of
the National Urban League.
A Sweet Victory for Nutrition Labels
l “’’ *
11
.1
Finally, the
government
sides with
consumers
J ill R ichardson
The Food and Drug
A d m in is tra tio n r e
cently came out with a sweet
surprise. Its proposed new nutri
tion label will finally give us a bit
of key information we need to
understand our food: the amount
o f added sugars.
If you look at a nutrition label
now, you will see how many
grams of sugar are in a serving
of your food. That includes all
sugars. It counts the lactose in
milk and naturally occurring sug
ars from fruit. The nutritionally
important bit of info for most of
us is not total sugars, but added
sugars — w hich include the
sweetener we call “sugar” plus
others like high-fructose com
syrup and honey.
In addition to the blueberries
and the yogurt in your blueberry
yogurt, how much sugar did the
manufacturer add? If you’re try
ing to pick the healthiest yogurt
by
----------- 1 . . 1
or granola
bar, that’s a Í fact . you
need to know.
OK, so every breakfast ce
real in the aisle has some sugar
added to it, but do the 19 grams
of sugar in Kellogg’s Rai
sin Bran come from the
raisins or from sugar and
high-fructose com syrup?
How does it stack up against
~
.
.
-
-
ter for Science in the Public
Interest asked the government
to include “Added Sugars” on
nutrition labels. The government
refused. Why? Because it might
confuse consumers.
The activist group tried again
in 1999. That year, sugar con
sumption hit an all-time high. Yet
again, the answer was no.
one issue.
The nutrition advice y o u ’ve
probably heard on sugar in
volves phrases like “em pty
calories” and “eat sparingly.”
The conventional wisdom was
that added sugars were bad
sim ply because they contrib
uted calories to your diet w ith
out any nutrition.
In truth, added sugar’s more than just an empty
calorie. It’s harmful to your body in a number o f
ways, and eating too much can increase your
risk o f contracting diabetes and heart disease,
having a stroke, and more serious illnesses.
à
Froot Loops, which only has 12
grams of sugar but no fruit at all ?
Until now, the sim plest way
to do this was som ething no
body will try at hom e. You can
count the num ber o f raisins per
serving of Raisin Bran and then
calculate the am ount o f sugar
in them. And, as it turns out,
the cereal is actually full of
added sugars.
More than two decades ago,
the nutrition activist group Cen-
In 2013, with F irst Lady
M ichelle O bam a calling the
nation’s attention to the cata
strophic state of our diets, it was
^time to^ry again. And — just
recently — the Food and Drug
Administration agreed.
It’s ridiculous that it took two
decades for the government to
side with consumers over the
interests of the food industry, but
thank goodness our leaders came
to their senses. At least on this
As for the advice about eat
ing it “sparingly,” th at’s not
what we do here in the United
States, w here about 15 per
cent o f our calories com e from
sugar.
In truth, added sugar’s more
than ju st an em pty calorie. It’s
harm ful to your body in a num
ber of ways, and eating too
much can increase your risk of
contracting diabetes and heart
disease, having a stroke, and
more serious illnesses.
The good news is, once the
new nutrition labels take effect,
you’ll at least be able to know
how much you’re eating. Going
by the A m e ric a n H eart
Association ’ s recommendations,
women should stick to six tea
spoons (25 grams) or less, and
men to nine teaspoons (38 grams)
or less.
Hopefully, food companies will
be as eager to claim their prod
ucts are low in added sugars as
they were to claim “zero trans
fats” when that went on the
label.
Successfully reducing sugar
consumption to healthier levels,
even with labeling, will be no
picnic in the toxic food environ
ment we live in. The real change
will come if — or when — food
com panies decide to remove
heaps of the sweet stuff from
our food instead of admitting to
obscene amounts of it on their
labels.
And that will be a sweet vic
tory for health.
OtherWords columnist Jill
Richardson is the author
o f Recipe fo r America: Why
Our Food System Is Broken
and What We Can Do to Fix It.