Doctor’s cookbook fights childhood obesity, one recipe at a time

Free toys and fatty foods are a bad combo meal. At least that’s what San Francisco supervisors decided when they voted Tuesday to ban Happy Meals and other fast-food fare from offering a free toy with meals that contain more than set levels of calories, sugar and fat.

The measure, which the San Francisco Chronicle reports requires a final vote next week, was controversial before the vote, a Los Angeles Times article reports, “with supporters arguing that it would help protect children from obesity, and opponents seeing it as the latest example of the nanny state gone wild.”

But one thing both sides can agree on is that childhood obesity needs to be addressed.

That’s what prompted one Pennsylvania doctor to write “The Healthy Way to Changing Carbs: Weight Control and Weight Loss for Families With Kids” (Eat for Health, $12). (Sample some recipes posted by the Allentown Morning Call.)

Dr. Arnold Slyper, a pediatric endocrinologist in Allentown, Pa., created the cookbook after treating so many children for high blood sugar and other weight-related problems, he explains in the Morning Call article “Weight-Loss Guide for Families.”