Improving school snacks is now officially a no-brainer.

A new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation concludes that getting rid of junk food at school boosts kids’ health and doesn’t hurt schools financially. Even many snack food companies are on board.

“What kids eat in school matters. If you change the school environment, they will eat healthier,” said Jessica Donze Black director of the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project, which produced the new report.

Snack food items should derive no more than 35 percent of their calories from either fat or sugar, and portion sizes should be limited to 100 calories for younger children and 180 calories for high schoolers, according to proposed new federal guidelines supported by the report.

What we offer kids affects what they eat today, and what they think will be acceptable to eat tomorrow, said former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, author of the 2009 book “The End of Overeating.”

“This is ultimately about changing what we want, but the way we do that is by changing our environment,” he said. “We don’t realize how much the environment affects our decision-making…It’s what we’ve put into our environment over the last 40 years that’s caused this [obesity] epidemic.”

In Massachusetts, where similar snack rules take effect for the fall, the changes won’t be dramatic in many districts. Brookline, for instance, expects to give up ice cream as a snack option, but not much else, according to Director of Food Services Sonya Elder. The district got rid of candy, transfats and sugary sodas years ago, Elder said, and most of its remaining snack items, like baked chips, are already relatively low in fat.

She said she supports the state guidelines, even though it means some short-term hassles for her department, making sure every item meets the standards.

“I think it’s a good regulation,” she said. “It gives us some structure.”

The biggest challenge is that the state regulations extend into the classroom, Elder said – meaning no more birthdays celebrated with cupcakes. (There’s a special exemption for bake sales, so maybe if you charge for the cupcakes…)

Karen Weintraub, a frequent contributor to CommonHealth, is a Cambridge-based health and science journalist.

I love that Sal Kahn, founder of the online education nonprofit, Khan Academy compared MIT to Hogwarts in his commencement address to 2012 graduates last week:

I always tell people that MIT is the closest thing to being Hogwarts — Harry Potter’s wizarding school — in real life.

The science and innovation that occurs here looks no different than pure magic to most of the world. The faculty here are the real-world McGonagalls — that’s you President Hockfield — and Dumbledores. There are secret tunnels and passages with strange wonders and creatures around every corner — some of whom may just finish their thesis this decade. The names of history’s great wizards surround us here in Killian Court — from Aristotle to Galileo, Newton to Darwin. They remind us that we have inherited an ancient art. One that, despite being vilified or suppressed by forces of ignorance throughout history, is the prime cause of human progress and well-being.

Also like Hogwarts, MIT brings young people from around the country and world who are a little bit off-the-charts in their potential for this “magic.” Some come from environments and communities that celebrated their gifts. Others had to actively hide their abilities and passions for fear of being ostracized and ridiculed. Students come to MIT from every religion, every ethnicity. Some from educated, affluent families, others from ones that live at or near poverty. But they — you, we — shared a common passion. Something that made us feel a little different. We sensed that MIT might be a place where there were others like us. Where we could challenge ourselves and develop our craft.

Khan, an MIT grad himself, also got personal, offering a moving analysis of, as he put it, “MIT-MIT love” the phenomenon of fellow MIT students bonding for life, as he did with his wife:

Of our many close friends from MIT, 90 percent are married to each other.

Now, I think this many friendships and marriages coming out of one place, as romantic as the Infinite Corridor may be, begs some introspection.

In fact, so extreme is the coupling that I have observed here that I have sometimes suspected that this whole place is just a front for a DARPA-funded human breeding project…

This is a place where students with perfect SAT scores and genius level IQs can and will fail exams. A place where students who may have been the brightest student in their school, state or country often feel mediocre and stressed. A place where sleep regularly takes a back seat to the intellectual intensity of the curriculum.

But this intensity is what forges deep bonds, honesty and compassion. You have laughed together, comforted each other, procrastinated together and cried together. You have been with each other at your best and worst moments. Like soldiers who have fought alongside each other, you have shared experiences that the rest of the world may not understand or even comprehend.

Because of this, whenever you see another MIT graduate the rest of your life, you know that you have a past in common. That you both have secret powers that you often keep hidden from regular view. Regardless of how different your pre-MIT backgrounds may have been, you will feel deeply connected — like people meeting from a long lost village or family or galaxy. You will actively seek other MIT people out. When others talk about an intellectually challenging experience they had or complain about how hard they had to work, you will glance at the other MIT grad in the room and share a quick smirk.

And if you are the preferred gender for each other, then you also might just realize that they have a certain twinkle in the eye. A certain beauty to the tilt of their head when they are deep in thought. Their competence and expertise makes you wonder what type of civilization you could create together. In short, you discover that you find them irresistibly attractive.

And with poetic flair, he urged students to keep sight of the big picture:

When you feel stressed, look up at the night sky and ponder the distance to the next star and the age of the universe. Think of all the other stressed sentient creatures from other star systems and galaxies looking out in the vastness of space in wonder and awe and take comfort in your shared experience.

When you feel overwhelmed, walk alone through the woods and forget your name, your title, your education and view yourself for what you really are — another mammal wondering why it is here but appreciating the fact that your civilization has not as yet been evaporated by a supernova…

Also remember that whom you choose as a life partner is a far more important decision than what career you choose to pursue. If you are lucky enough to have a true equal, someone who fills you with joy and emotional contentment, with whom you have deep shared values, who respects you and loves you for your innate you-ness; no superficial, external failure or conflict can faze you.

The Sacramento Bee reports:

A lack of social acceptance could account for the lower test scores, researchers said. Obese children who do not feel accepted by their peers often exhibit feelings of loneliness, sadness and anxiety that can hinder their academic performance.

Those feelings became even more apparent as the children progressed through school, according to the study.

“Children who have weight problems are not as well-received by their peers. That creates a condition or situation where developing social skills isn’t as easy,” said Sara Gable, the study’s lead author and an associate professor in the department of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

For girls, but not for boys, difficulty developing social skills was related to obesity.

“The stigma of obesity and lack of conformity to standards of physical appearance – girls are perhaps … no pun intended, feeling the weight of that more,” Gable said…

For their study, the researchers analyzed data tracking 6,250 children nationwide from kindergarten through fifth grade. They compared the academic performance of students who were obese in kindergarten or first grade and remained so through fifth grade with children who were never obese. The data also included teacher reports of children’s interpersonal skills and feelings such as sadness or loneliness.

When children were tested one-on-one in math, those who were obese began scoring lower than their peers in first grade, the study found. The timing suggests that the relationship between obesity and poor academic performance takes root as children progress in school, Gable said.

The mother of a 4-year-old is suing her kid’s $19K-a-year preschool for apparently ruining the child’s shot at getting into an Ivy League college, The New York Daily News reports.

How? The report suggests that by dumbing down the classroom with 2-and 3-year-olds in the mix, and offering play, not rigor, and a less-than-stimulating curriculum of blocks and shapes, the child might not get in to Harvard.

In court papers, Nicole Imprescia suggests York Avenue Preschool jeopardized little Lucia’s chances of getting into an elite private school or, one day, the Ivy League.

She’s demanding a refund of the $19,000 tuition and class-action status for other toddlers who weren’t properly prepped for the standardized test that can mean the difference between Dalton and – gasp! – public school. “This is about a theft where a business advertises as one thing and is actually another,” said Mathew Paulose, a lawyer for the outraged mom.

Impressed by the school’s pledge to ready its young students for the ERB – a test used for admission at top private schools – Imprescia enrolled her daughter at York in 2009. A month into this school year, she transferred the child out of the upper East Side center because she was forced to slum with 2-year-olds.

“Indeed, the school proved not to be a school at all, but just one big playroom,” the suit says. The court papers implied the school could have damaged Lucia’s chances of getting into a top college, citing an article that identifies preschools as the first step to “the Ivy League.”

There are many ways to decrease your blood pressure. You can diet, exercise, quit smoking and reduce your stress. But Brown University researchers have found another path to lower blood pressure, particularly for women: getting an undergraduate or master’s degree.

In a study published Sunday in the open access journal BMC Public Health, researchers found that women who had 12 years or less of schooling (up to high school), measured 3 millimeters of mercury higher on blood pressure tests than women who attended school for at least 17 years. Men had a 2 mm difference.

Eric Loucks, one of the study’s authors and an assistant professor of medical science at Brown, says that on an individual level, the difference in blood pressure is not earth shattering. But if the overall education system shifted to reflect these findings, public health as a whole could improve significantly, he said.

In the paper, Loucks examined 4,000 patient records from the 30-year Framingham Offspring Study. The study participants were the children of members of the Framingham Heart Study, which found that smoking cigarettes causes heart disease, and elevated blood pressure can cause stroke.

Other studies have linked heart disease with lower education levels, but Loucks wondered if the connection was even stronger, and if the biological underpinnings of heart disease (blood pressure, in this case) were also affected by educational level.

Upon closer examination, the female participants had much more dramatic results.

Once researchers controlled for other influences like smoking, drinking, obesity, and blood pressure medication, there was a 2.9 mm difference between women who went to college and those who didn’t. It was a 1.3 difference for men. When the study looked at whether these differences persisted over a life span, men and women diverged. Women with college degrees maintained blood pressures 2.5 mm lower than other women. The difference between men dropped to .3.

This could mean that as life goes on, educational level affects heart disease more significantly for women than it does for men.

For both women and men, the practical benefits of having a college degree could be the reason for the difference in blood pressure, Loucks said.

“As people’s education goes up, they make more money, they have better jobs, they can afford better health care. Their literacy goes up, along with their ability to understand public health messages. They tend to eat more fruits and vegetables and to exercise more,” he said.
The findings could also be related to stress, Loucks said. People without college degrees can have more difficult times finding employment and getting by, so the stress could increase their blood pressure, he said.

“I think that’s maybe why it’s stronger in women than men. Women who have lower levels in education are more likely to be living below the poverty line and suffering with depression,” he said.

Loucks said the findings reflect the changes in education over the years.

“What does it mean to have low education in today’s society vs. 30-40 years ago?” he said. “Thirty years ago, a high school education got people better jobs.”

“Education means something different for every generation,” he said.

Loucks said one of the study’s main weaknesses is that it “wasn’t able to account for early life factors that could influence both blood pressure and education.”

If people have troubled home lives and little opportunity, that stress could not only make them unlikely to obtain college degrees, but could also lead them to have higher blood pressure.

Also, the study included mostly white participants, because the town of Framingham has a largely white population. This means the findings do not necessarily apply to the African American and Hispanic communities, which tend towards higher blood pressure.

And the question remains, Loucks said, whether policy makers should try to improve the quality or quantity of education. Is it the time students spend in college that allows them to mature and handle the stresses of life? Does the process of learning contain the health benefits? Or can the practical benefits of having a college education, like increased access to health care, explain the findings?

Ultimately, Loucks said, the researchers hope to determine what specific education interventions could improve public health.