American children are still consuming far too many calories from fatty foods, even as U.S. adults have made modest cuts in their caloric intakes, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Between 2009 and 2010, American adults cut back on eating pizzas, french fries, and other greasy fast foods by about two percent — and while children also reduced their caloric consumption in the aggregate, they still received a high share of their daily calories from saturated fats during that time period:

Recommended U.S. guidelines suggest that no more than 10 percent of one’s daily calories should come from such fat, but American youth took in between 11 percent and 12 percent from 2009 to 2010, data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics showed.

Americans’ diets and weight is a source of constant scrutiny and research in a country where two-thirds of the population is considered overweight or obese. According to the CDC, 36 percent of U.S. adults, or 78 million, and 17 percent of youth, or 12.5 million, are obese. Another third are overweight. [...]

Still, Americans lead the world in calorie consumption. Portion sizes also have increased over the years, coupled with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, have added up to extra pounds. Complications from obesity include diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and some cancers.

What is particularly worrying about the report is the fact that “those who are already obese” are among the groups that consumed the most unhealthy foods, highlighting the fact that not only does America remain ill-equipped to prevent obesity in its nascent stages, but is also failing to improve obese Americans’ health after the fact. That doesn’t bode well for national health expenditures, considering that somewhere between 10 and 12 percent of all health insurance spending is driven by obesity-related conditions.

Furthermore, the obesity epidemic is disproportionately impacting black Americans, who are more likely to excessively consume fatty and sugary foods. That isn’t just a coincidence — the food industry is notorious for its efforts to undermine public health with misleading ad campaigns and product information opacity, and those efforts are often targeted in low-income, racially diverse communities. Soda advertising campaigns in particular take aim at poor, young black Americans, contributing to a status quo where low-income black youth are far more likely to consume calories from sugary drinks.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any progress in the war on American obesity. Public health advocates have successfully lobbied major food companies to cut back on sodium in their products, and are now asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to pass rules cracking down on sweeteners in foods and drinks. The FDA has also taken efforts to eliminate fatty foods from school lunch menus. Still, the FDA and American food manufacturers could — and should — do much more, as historical evidence shows that localities with aggressive nutrition policies experienced significant drops in childhood obesity.

Today marks the 13th annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Begun in 2000 by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and grassroots public health organizations, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day was launched as part of a widespread effort to curb the rate of HIV infection among black men and women through “education, testing, involvement, and treatment.”

While it is well established that HIV/AIDS has had a devastating effect on people in developing nations — particularly India and much of the African continent — the epidemic has also been deadly for the United States’ black community. Here are three things to keep in mind about HIV/AIDS and black America today:

1. HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects African Americans and the urban poor. African American men accounted for 70 percent of new HIV infections in 2009, and overall, African Americans made up 44 percent of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. That translates to 20,000 black men and women in the United States testing positive for HIV every year — and that doesn’t account for the HIV-positive members of the black community who haven’t yet been diagnosed. All told, black Americans are eight times more likely than white Americans to be HIV-positive, and ten times more likely to die from the disease. The epidemic is divided among economic lines, too. The urban poor, overrepresented by African Americans in the country’s major metropolitan areas, are also burdened with unusually high rates of HIV/AIDS. Those living just above the poverty line are three times as likely to be infected than the national average, and those below the poverty line six times more likely to be infected than the national average.

2. GOP lawmakers have been slashing funding for HIV testing and treatment under Medicaid. Although the U.S. Preventative Task Force recommended that all community health clinics — which serve poorer regions — conduct free HIV testing, many centers haven’t had enough resources to follow through. And the issue has been exacerbated by Republican governors who have refused to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Expanding Medicaid would extend insurance coverage to millions of low-income Americans, including more access to HIV testing and treatments. Instead, some GOP leaders are making aggressive cuts to their state-level Medicaid programs — like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who recently slashed a case management program for low-income HIV patients.

3. The future of HIV/AIDS treatment is bright. Despite the myriad of challenges facing the Americans who suffer from HIV/AIDS, public health officials remain optimistic about the coming years. The life expectancy for HIV-positive Americans has been steadily increasing due to more effective treatment regimens, and despite some lawmakers’ best efforts to undermine progress, access to HIV testing and coverage for treatments has been on the rise. And a cure may even be on the horizon — just last month, a team of researchers in Spain made an important breakthrough by creating a a new HIV vaccine that is much more effective — and less expensive — than any earlier attempts.

African-Americans living in highly segregated counties are at significantly elevated risk of dying from lung cancer, according to the results from a new study.

African-Americans already suffer from the highest incidence of lung cancer in the United States. But as the New York Times reports, a study published in JAMA Surgery finds that black Americans in highly segregated areas are 20 percent more likely to die from the disease compared to those who live in the least segregated regions:

The study drew on federal mortality data from that period, and segregation data from about a third of United States counties that had African-American populations large enough to measure. About 28 percent of Americans live in counties with low segregation, 40 percent in counties with moderate segregation and 32 percent in counties with high segregation.

The gap in outcomes persisted even after accounting for differences in smoking rates and socio-economic status, Dr. Hayanga said.

Dr. David Chang, director of outcomes research at the University of California San Diego Department of Surgery, who wrote an accompanying editorial, said he hoped that the study would focus attention on the environmental factors involved in the stark disparities in health outcomes in the United States because they lend themselves to change through policy. Medical researchers tend to focus on factors that are harder to change, like the genetics and the behaviors of individuals.

This trend held true even when controlling for smoking rates and socioeconomic status, implying that other regional factors played into the discrepancy. While the JAMA report doesn’t delve into the causes behind the mortality rate disparity, other studies on American segregation have found that, in highly segregated locales, a larger minority population corresponded with significantly less access to surgical and emergency medical care. That data alone is not conclusive, but it does suggest that stratified access to health care remains an enormous hindrance to public health — particularly for people of color.

Abortion rights, we’re told, are our Great Divider. America is cleaved in two. Fifty unremitting percent on either side. There is no United States of America, only pro and anti choice America.

But what if that’s not true? Or, more precisely, what if that won’t be true for much longer?

The 2012 election has been touted as a watershed moment for the Democratic Party, but it may have been one for the pro-choice cause as well. And it’s not because the would-be rape caucus was defeated or that pro-choice candidates won big, though those help. Rather, it’s that there’s good reasons to believe the coalition Obama has built is not only durable, but also staunchly pro-choice. If that’s true, it could signify the start of a major shift on what had previously been thought to have been a fundamental fault line in American politics.

Let’s start with the exit polling. The 2012 electorate was overwhelmingly pro-choice; 59 percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while only 36 percent said the reverse. The critical swing states followed the pattern, with some like Virginia falling to the left of the national average. Exit polls should be taken with a grain of salt, of course, but these numbers undeniably suggest American voters are more pro-choice than previously thought, especially in the states up for grabs in Presidential and Senatorial elections.

These data throw a monkey wrench in the conventional wisdom about abortion rights — namely, that it’s an issue that the GOP could use to make inroads with the new Obama coalition. Young voters, women, African-Americans, and Latinos have average-to-conservative views on choice, we’re told. But many identified as pro-choice in 2012. What gives?

Part of the answer is that the general picture is wrong: these key Democratic groups generally track the national average on abortion or tilt left. Though some polls suggest young voters are likely to support restricting abortion rights, the most systematic evidence suggests Milllenials are as, if not more, likely to support keeping abortion legal in all or most cases as the general population. Ditto with women. While African-Americans used to lean right, the most recent polling suggests a decisive pro-choice shift.

Even Latinos, who generally (though not always) tend to oppose abortion rights, have more complicated views than pundits generally let on. While first and second generation Latino-Americans tend to oppose abortion in most or all cases, third generation and higher Latinos support abortion rights by a 19 point margin. Since the Latino population boom is currently being fueled by birth rather than immigration, the third generation cohort seems likely to grow over time. Not incidentally, Latinos who voted in the 2012 election supported keeping abortion legal by a 2:1 margin (though, for it’s worth, the poll didn’t include Texas).

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