Legislative Opportunities for Cancer Control

Transcript

00:04 --> 00:35Welcome to a series of net casts brought to you by Yale University Hello. My name is Kelly Brownell. I'm the director of the Red Center for food policy and obesity at Yale University. Today we're going to talk about the way museums might get involved in food policy and obesity related issues. We have 2 guests genetic Vicks is professor of Epidemiology and public health end of psychology at Yale University. She is director of social and behavioral Sciences at the school of public health at Yale.
00:35 --> 00:54And also director of care Community Alliance for research an engagement or other guest is Doctor Marlene Schwarz. Marlene is deputy director of the Red Center for food policy and obesity well known for her work nationally internationally on schools. Children food and food policy issues, so I'm delighted to have both of you here.
00:55 --> 01:23So the Peabody Museum at Yale now has an exhibit open until early December called big food and one doesn't think necessarily museums as a player, or an actor in this way of getting the word out about food and food policy issues, but it turns out. They certainly can be Internet? Could you tell us about how this partnership between you and Marlene and the public health community and the museum came about thanks Kelly.
01:24 --> 01:41In a big food was really in a way an accident of fate a very happy accident. I call myself sort of the accidental curator. I was very pleased at the museum has gotten into a lot of health issues recently, particularly related to infectious disease, you know big.
01:42 --> 02:13Bugs and things that children just love at museums and I met somebody there an I said, You know it's fabulous peabodys doing health, but it's not acute infection driving the human condition, it's chronic disease and you should do a show on the evolution of obesity and that's where it started. We then pull together a curatorial team that included Marlene and Meg or Siri from read the chairman of anthropology as well as museum staff.
02:13 --> 02:17An we wrote that first concept sheet.
02:18 --> 02:48Got the OK to move forward and it was then very early that we realized that we needed to broaden the perspective from just obesity, which may or may not bring people into a museum to talking about food, which we know brings everyone together and I know this is turned out to be very popular. I'd like to come back in a few moments and talk about that. In particular, especially number schoolchildren who seemed to be coming through them. The museum exhibit Marley and I know that the content of this.
02:48 --> 02:59Could have been anything because you started with a blank slate? How did you make decisions about what sort of things should go in big food and then let's talk about what the specific exhibits look like.
02:59 --> 03:31So one of the things that was really important to us is we wanted to strike a balance between focusing on what individuals can do and the concept of personal responsibility. An looking at the environment and what sorts of policy and societal changes need to happen. So we kind of went back and forth between for example, showing what the average American eats in a year, which you see through the quarter of food as you walk into the museum to a lot of emphasis on the food industry, an practices like marketing to children.
03:31 --> 04:02Things like the amount of added sugar that is in a lot of beverages that are marketed to kids and things like that. So we wanted to really give people a sense of both? What is out there in the environment and then how we are reacting to it and then really at the end wanted to give people some concrete ideas of things that they could do to try to move things forward so we asked people to make pledges about things they can do for themselves for their families and their communities and I just want to add a couple of things one is.
04:02 --> 04:32Let's talk about the the other half of the title, which is big food. Health culture and the evolution of eating and so In addition to the many things that Marlene's talked about there's a big component of the health consequences as well. Both physical health consequences and some mental health consequences and I have been so thrilled with the positive response to the exhibition. An I think that part of that is because we do take a broad perspective and.
04:32 --> 05:02It is not all about individual choice but we recognize the multifaceted the determinants are and I it seems that the public is really responding to that and resonating to that and not feeling you know sort of personally attacked but really engaged in the conversation because they can engage in the many aspects that may interest them and was very helpful to get a conceptual perspective of what guided you and setting this up.
05:02 --> 05:35Let's talk about the execution of the principle and what sort of things are in the exhibit itself. Maybe each of you could give a few examples of things people will see or interact with once they go in Marlene. Can you give a few examples sure well one thing that actually I think was unique about this exhibit is we also address the issue of weight bias and discrimination. So we do have a panel that talks about the different ways in which overweight individuals experience bias in their lives. And it was important to us to have that as part of the exhibit and then I would say the 2:00 parts that.
05:35 --> 06:06I was most excited about one was we created a replica of a teenager's bedroom and we show young person lying in bed with the remote control and we show the television and the computer and provide a lot of information about the different ways in which children are marketed to even in their own homes and then the second thing that I was really excited about that was sort of a outgrowth of our research at the Red Center was the sugary drink spoonfuls of sugar.
06:06 --> 06:36Cabinet, where basically we took about 20 different common beverages and then took spoonfuls of sugar and sort of line them up vertically above the container so you could actually see how much sugar and it seems to me from the feedback. I've gotten that that's really striking to people that they don't realize how much sugar is in a lot of the beverages that they consume regularly and more or less. What was the range of sugar in some of these beverages number of teaspoons well, we have, I think.
06:36 --> 07:07It had a lot to do with the size of the container, but I know there was an Arizona Ice T. That's a large container that I think had over 23 to be exact and then there were ones. Like the small Capri Suns, which tend to be in smaller containers, but still had. I think 5 or 6 teaspoons of sugar so people are surprised 'cause they don't realize how much added sugar in those beverages OK sure that can you give us a few examples of other things that are in the exhibit there quite a number of?
07:07 --> 07:35Of different features of the excitement. Yeah, the I think it's very visually stimulating in a great way. I think Marlene already mentioned a bit the quarter of food when you first walk in as you come into the museum. You are faced with 12 foot walls on either side that go up about 8:00 or 10 feet high and based on data from the US Census Bureau is the amount of food that an average American.
07:36 --> 08:06Purchases in a year and these are real foodstuffs, as well as some curated foodstuffs. And they're all presented to scale so you'll see on the left hand side 4546 gallons of soda adjacent to only 22 gallons of milk because in fact, we purchased twice as much soda as milk, you, also see 170 pounds of meat compared to just about.
08:06 --> 08:2216 pounds of fish, so this corridor is quite stunning 36 pounds of French fries big hunk of cheese. Lots of bread and snack foods and so forth along with that, we should mention some fruits and vegetables that are consumed as well.
08:23 --> 08:36After you walk through the corridor. There is a short film that is available online at the Peabody Museum as well as at the rudden care websites that was produced by Emmy nominated filmmaker and prom.
08:37 --> 09:10And that provides a nice overview. From there, we do talk. Historically, a bit about Hunter gatherers and contemporary Hunter Gatherer Society and Paraguai. The Autrey and that provides an opportunity to really discuss issues not just of food. But the energy that goes into getting food or that did go into getting food versus the calling out for a pizza or going through the drive through and I know you tried you tried very hard to make it interactive and there are a couple of things, particularly caught my attention about this.
09:10 --> 09:44It would be interesting for both of you to talk about this. But Marlene I know there are places where there are food labels and behind the door shows the product explain why you did, that, so here we conceptualize almost like a vending machine. This sort of big foresighted structure, where we wanted to really illustrate in a concrete way how difficult it is to know what you're eating if you just look at the food label because, with the amount of processing of a lot of snack foods in our country. The labels are indistinguishable because it's just a whole bunch of chemical names and.
09:44 --> 10:17Trans fats and high fructose corn syrup and lots. Lots of things in these foods right at like 2 or 3 ingredient. Dozens of ingredients so in order to make that point and to make it more fun. We created this sort of machine where there is a little door and on the outside of the door is the nutrition facts label that you would see on the package and the ideas. You look at that and you try to guess what's inside and then you open the door and you actually will see the package so that was a lot of fun to put together and there's some in there that are straightforward you know where it speeches and it's a little container Peach is, but then there are other ones.
10:17 --> 10:48That are really quite difficult and we've even had some nutritionists come through, who can't figure out what's inside this very striking and kids love it. Of course, and we all love it because there is this opportunity as you say to be interactive really hands-on you read the label. You put your hand on the nob you open the door and you see the package. There's another place in the exhibition where we use the same kind of simple technology and that's in a section called portion distortion. We know of course, that portion sizes have gotten.
10:48 --> 11:18Tremendous just as obesity has skyrocketed in the last 30 years. So to have portion sizes and so we have another section with doors that can be opened and above each of those doors is common household objects like a golf ball, a pair of dice. A deck of cards hockey puck and so forth an under each door is the portion that really goes with each of those objects. Of course, the portion size being much smaller.
11:18 --> 11:48Then we would anticipate so for instance, cheese really portion of cheese is really intended to be 2 or 3 dice. Your meat or fish is meant to be the size of a deck of Cards, not the size of you know a textbook right. You know another. Another example of it's so interesting to be at that exhibit and watch people interacting with these things as I've done and I know you have as well, and there's one in particular, Marlene replica.
11:48 --> 12:21Of a blob of fat explain what that's all about so we had gotten basically a rubber representation of £5 of fat and we basically just put it in a plastic box that you can reach in and touch and it's really very surprising to people? How big it is because you don't think of £5 as being that much fat and plus it does give the kids something to kind of reach in and squeeze and it does get quite an emotional reaction when Kids do it, so interesting.
12:21 --> 12:52I also wanted to add one of the things that was actually really fun about working on this exhibit as a researcher was trying to come up with ways of representing research that's exciting and interesting and can hold the attention of a 10 year old, so one study that we represented was project done by Brian Wansink, who's a professor at Cornell, where he had looked at the serving sizes and recipes for the joy of cooking over the past several decades. And so there is a section where we actually show.
12:52 --> 13:22A recipe for chili both from you know sort of I don't know 1970 years ago, 1936 and 2006 right and so we show the 2 copies of the joy of cooking and then we show the ingredients and the differences in terms of the calories and it's amazing that the very same recipe that many years ago, had beans in it, and less meat and the serving sizes were smaller and as a consequence, the calories are substantially bigger and so it just was kind of a fun way to try to represent this idea.
13:22 --> 13:53That even in subtle ways like through recipes in a cookbook our society has really grown accustomed to much more calorie. Dense and larger portions. You know it's so interesting the number of Oh my God, type things that exist in this exhibit. I really quite striking because one thing after another you see and it's surprising amazing interactive in some engaging way so I think the exhibits terrific in that regard. Let's talk a little bit about what the responses mentioned that can you tell us about how the museum traffic has been an?
13:53 --> 14:24Whether the museum seems happy with the way this exhibit is gone. I think the museum is thrilled. The we had a record breaking March in over a decade. They hadn't seen that much foot traffic through the museum since the famed modu. Picchu exhibit about 10 years ago. More than 50,000 people have been through the exhibition, including many, many school groups as you mentioned pretty short period of time in a short period of time. We opened in February and will be running through December, 2nd of this year.
14:24 --> 14:59We expect if our if we are able to maintain and I expect that we will kind of high levels of attendance and maybe continued record breaking attendance somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 people and that's here in our small city of New Haven very impressive now. I know one thing that you tried to do as much as possible was to make this interesting and engaging for children. Marlene what's the rationale for doing something like that, well, I think that first of all the Peabody is a museum that really appeals to families because of the dinosaurs, it has always been a.
14:59 --> 15:30Place in the community where people like to go with their kids and so that's one reason 'cause. It was fitting with the mission of the Peabody. But the 2nd is that I really feel like in order to change the way that we all interact with food and view food. We need to start early and so children. We already know are being bombarded by messages from the food industry trying to convince them what good foods are and how much they should be eating and so I really wanted this to provide a fun but also pretty.
15:30 --> 16:00Important message for kids about how to interact with food and how to understand some of the ways in which food is being marketed to them and to that. I'll add a couple of things one another part which we haven't talked about yet, but near and dear to my heart and public health and I know to both of you as well is again thinking about how do we appeal to children in relation to talk about the health consequences? Which are quite serious and so we?
16:00 --> 16:35Contacted the Department of pathology and got organs. We got a healthy liver and a fatty liver. Anna healthy kidney in a nephrotic kidney and cross sections of the heart and the lungs and had just the right growth factor for museum like the Peabody as well, but also very engaging in really being able to see quite visually that the liver quadruples in size as a function of the fat cells actually RE.
16:35 --> 16:54Placing the liver cells and in contrast, the kidneys shrink because the metabolic changes associated with obesity cause. Those kidney cells to die, an what's been amazing getting back also to the response has been the number of emails that I've received.
16:55 --> 17:11From some people I know, but also perfect strangers talking about how the exhibition has changed their lives that their children are making choices based on what they're seeing that. The parents are making choices, saying, You know, Arizona never again.
17:12 --> 17:42As well as some of the other sugar sweetened beverages. People are more aware of portion size. They're making commitments to change and we believe there following through on those so let's this exhibit, which had the powerful effects that you're talking about on the people who have been through came about more or less is a historic accent. You just you just happen to have a conversation with somebody teamed up with Marlene and other people at Rudd and other people from Yale put together this dynamite.
17:43 --> 17:52Phenomenon if you will let's talk about home might spread and whether this same phenomenon might be replicated in other places so.
17:52 --> 18:24If you if somebody is listening into this from another city and they have a museum nearby and would like the museum to take on an issue like this? What would you suggest they do they can definitely contact me at jeanette.etcavicks@yale.edu or hop on the care website. There have been museums around the country that have expressed some interest and we do hope that after it closes here in December that it can travel to one or more additional cities. We worked hard to make it engaging and entertaining and fun and.
18:24 --> 18:52Educational and these issues are of such critical importance. We want to see the messages continue to flow. We think that big food can be a lot bigger than Peabody in New Haven, though this will always be its homebase part of the issue is, of course funding as it always is an I would be remiss if I didn't mention the anthem foundation as the presenting sponsor along with Donahue Foundation and others.
18:53 --> 19:23And so if you are interested. Please contact us. There may be different ways to do it. There's of course. The exhibition in total, including the vending machine and the organs and the cookbooks. But there's also the informational panels, which will be much easier to transmit electronically. And there's only this available on the Peabody website. There are pieces of it. The film is there as well as some of the interactive kiosks so we did develop a couple of games.
19:24 --> 19:54Those are all available online at the moment and of course, some of the general material is but we you know this is about bringing evidence to action as we say at care an in general, giving the science away an what better place than a museum in our museum here, reaching we hope up to 200,000 people. But there are hundreds of millions of people around the nation that go to museums every year and so to be able to have.
19:54 --> 20:27The exhibition in its entire T but also even components to get out to museums and also to schools and other community groups. I think we would be committed to that, so Marlene for the last word. It sounds like the traffic. The enthusiasm everything about this has been really good. That's had an educational impact. It's been good for the public health community and good for the museum as well. It sounds like so if somebody out there is listening and want to just get in touch with a museum and say can you do this too or?
20:27 --> 21:00Could you have this travel to our place? Do you think their museum directors would be responsive. I think that the museum directors would be responsive. I think the specially museums that have sort of children and Families, as their focus realized that obesity and poor diet is such a significant problem right now and they want to be relevant. I know even part of the let's move initiative that Michelle Obama has includes a museum component and so I would encourage people who have museums in their community.
21:00 --> 21:33To go ahead and get in touch with them and talk about this because my sense is that museums really see themselves as a place to educate their own community and to keep it exciting and to keep it new and this really has proven to be a great opportunity for the museum to provide that information for their community. Well, this is a very exciting development in the field. I'm I'm grateful for the contribution. You both had made to this so thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Our guest where doctor genetic obix and Doctor Marlene Schwarz, curator and Co curator and public health experts.
21:33 --> 21:50For them Peabody Museum in New Haven's big food exhibit, please fit us visit our website, www.yaleruncenter.org, you find information about this particular museum exhibit but a lot of other information on food policy issues as well. Thank you.

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Legislative Opportunities for Cancer Control with guest Bryte Johnson June 16, 2019 Yale Cancer Center visit: http://www.yalecancercenter.org email: canceranswers@yale.edu call: 203-785-4095