JUNK food is perfectly all right even if you wish to lose weight, says fitness trainer Dave Nuku, who shaped up members of the Blue Team in last year’s reality TV hit, The Biggest Loser Asia.

But the rather bold statement comes with a caveat: You have to make sure that you do not let “sometimes” food become “everyday” food.

The 31-year-old lean-but beefy hunk was in town last Wednesday to promote health club Fitness First’s Lose Big Programme, a 13-week regimen tailored for overweight individuals.

The New Zealander, who is currently based in Malaysia and married with a five-year-old daughter, tells my paper about his experience on the TV show, and the weighty issue of obesity.

What was most challenging thing about The Biggest Loser Asia?

The training programme had to be progressive, because the simplest of tasks would make the participants sweat.

We had to make sure not to plan something that was too difficult for them in the beginning.

The trainers in the American version of The Biggest Loser are known to come down pretty harsh on their teams. What’s your modus operandi?

I operate by two sets of rules: The first set is no excuses, no complaining and no feeling sorry for yourself.

Last month, scientists at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity published a provocative study suggesting that kids are especially drawn to junk food when a popular cartoon character adorns the package. Researchers offered 40 children, ages four to six, identical graham crackers, gummy fruits, and carrots. One sample came in a package decorated with Scooby Doo, Dora the Explorer, or Shrek. The other had plain packaging.  Despite the fact that the food choices were identical, the majority of the kids chose the snacks with the cartoon labeling.  Most of them also said that the snacks with the cartoon character tasted better—except, of course for the carrots.

The authors interpreted their findings in policy terms, concluding that “the use of licensed characters to advertise junk food to children should be prohibited.”  The media seemed to agree. The Chicago Tribune, paraphrasing the authors, wrote, “At a time when a third of all children in the U.S. are overweight or obese, the study underscores both the power of advertising to influence young children and the ineffectiveness of using the same techniques to convince them to eat more nutritious foods.”

Predictably, the Yale study attracted critics, most of whom have leveled common gripes: the sample was too small, the study wasn’t double blind, the alternative choice (plain packaging) stacked the deck toward the much livelier dominant choice, etc. Perhaps these criticisms have some merit. But they all miss something  fundamental. The Yale study, which no doubt was undertaken with considerable care, nevertheless threatens to distract us from the more amorphous causes of obesity, causes that are only peripherally (at best) related to the cynical manner in which marketers try to win the hearts, minds, and palates of our children—and causes that, unfortunately, are much harder to fix.

Allow me to make my point elliptically. When I was reading the Yale study, I could hear my two kids—ages six and eight—playing with their two friends—also six and eight—out in the yard. They’d placed a bamboo pole across two lawn chairs and were attempting to hurdle it.  True, my sample of four subjects is only ten percent of the Yale study’s sample, and true, there was certainly nothing double blind about my study, but what the heck: I decided to undertake a home-grown research project.

“Hey, guys, can I ask you about why you want the foods you want at the grocery store?,” I asked.  I was immediately confronted with a chorus of suspicion: “Why do you want to know?” “Why are you asking?” “Who cares?” An ornery subject set, this group.

Once assured that my motives were in the interest of science, the young skeptics opened up. Why did they pick certain foods over others (or at least attempt to)? One respondent, age eight, explained that he chose food that “looks yummy and fruity-snacky.” Another, also age eight, gravitated towards food she knew “would be yummier than what I’m having for dinner.” The eight-year-olds, who were clearly accustomed to reading labels, were attracted to hyphenations such as “strawberry-vanilla” (as, for example, with yogurt).  The six-year olds were less forthcoming: one said she wanted food that “looks yummy.” Another stared at me blankly and said she had no idea what I was talking about.

“What if there was a cartoon character on the label?” I asked. “Would that help you choose?”  This is where things got interesting.   “I don’t trust wrapping,” declared the female representative. The eight-year old male concurred, adding, “they just show it [the cartoon] because they want people to buy it [the product].” Even my six-year old daughter considered the cartoon label with a skunk eye. “There might be something in it I don’t know about and don’t like.” She simply wanted food that was “nutritious and joooo-ceeee.” [Research note: I asked my daughter this question a day later, to ensure that she wouldn’t be influenced by the answers of her wizened peers.]

So that was my study. Seemingly haphazard as they are, my subjects’ rapid-fire responses offer a wealth of suggestive evidence about the deeper causes of obesity, ones that force us to rethink the ultimate significance of cartoons and labeling. What struck me first about the kids’ answers was the instinctive and repeated emphasis on taste. There’s nothing refined about juvenile taste buds. Like most kids, my research subjects eat junk food with regularity and enthusiasm.  Within twenty-four hours after my survey, they’d consumed an impressive smorgasbord of trash, including jelly beans, ice cream, hot dogs, bubble gum, and chocolate candy (okay, we are on vacation).  There’s a reason why, when celebrity-chef Jamie Oliver convinced English schools to serve healthy food, almost a half million children quit the lunch programs while the most enterprising among them initiated a black market in “crisps.” Point being, no amount of marketing, preaching, or nagging will change the fundamental truth that “fruity-snacky” or “joooo-ceee” is nirvana to the sensory world of nearly every child.

The kids in my study are thin.  Understanding why this is so, in spite of their predilection for junk food, requires placing their affinity for junk food in a larger perspective—one hinted at in their comments.  The response about eating food that would be “yummier than what I’m having for dinner” gets at something critical: the snacks that these kids crave, and often consume, are intuitively understood as a relative rarity in their dietary universe.  They’ve been consciously and subconsciously browbeaten by their parents, teachers, and peers toward the basic tenets of a decent diet, one that stresses the utmost importance of moderation when it comes to the jelly beans and hot dogs, and one that will likely further minimize junk, and emphasize the healthy stuff, as the kids get older.

In many cases, this soft education appeals directly to a child’s self-interest—if they eat crap, they are taught, they will feel like crap—which is generally true. It matters very little to these kids what cartoon characters decorate their chocolate milk box. The entirety of their diet has little to do with the nature of their cravings or the irresistible allure of packaging. It has everything to do, though, with their socio-economic status, the level of education attained by their parents, and all the myriad and subtle factors that accompany these weighty and politically relevant measures.  And this, in a nutshell, is what makes obesity such a daunting — if not insurmountable — challenge to public health. The causes of the expanding waistlines of American youth have roots entangled with the amorphous forces of history, economics, and technology—factors that, I suspect, no simple policy initiative can meaningfully nail down and manipulate.

Making matters more daunting is the fact that there’s also a very good possibility that obesity has relatively little to do with food choice. When we talk about solving the problem of obesity, we’re talking, in essence, about creating a multi-faceted culture—one that, broadly conceived, not only greets corporate attempts to dominate our personal food choices with steely skepticism (“I don’t trust wrappers . .”), and not only situates junk food in a healthy context, but one that places paramount value on physical activity. The cultural barriers to becoming obese rise considerably when kids are physically engaged with the world. It surely helps kids to stay active (although by no means ensures it) if they live with two parents, if at least one of them has enough leisure time to ferry them to and from sporting events, if the parents themselves exercise regularly, and if they can provide access to safe spaces where kids can run around.  One is tempted to say that a childhood nurtured with constant physical activity renders food a minor factor when it comes to the confounding matter of getting fat.

But here’s the catch: a genuine culture, much less one whose habits minimize the chances of becoming obese, is extremely hard—if not impossible—to shape through direct policy measures.  Which brings us back to the issue of cartoon labeling. My problem with the nature of the Yale study is not that it identified and empirically confirmed what seems to be a viable connection between labeling and food choice. It’s that the message likely will, in the realm of critical public opinion, become little more than a red herring. Outraged consumers crave single, verifiable enemies when we seek blame for a crisis as costly and heart-rending as obesity. How satisfying it is to direct our anger at a single guilty culprit: in this case, feckless food marketers who exploit cartoon characters to make kids fat. The problem, though, is that taking those characters off food labels would do a better job of assuaging our anti-corporate anger than it would of shrinking the waistlines of our ballooning children.

Ours is a nation that has given the world baseball, the airplane and the electric light, but also Kool-Aid (Edwin Perkins, 1927), Pizza Hut (the Carney brothers, 1958) and Doritos (Arch West, 1966).

The history of junk food is a largely American tale: It has been around for hundreds of years, in many parts of the world, but no one has done a better job inventing so many varieties of it, branding it, mass-producing it, making people rich off it and, of course, eating it.

The death of an obscure New York entrepreneur on July 27 — Morrie Yohai, 90, a World War II veteran who was the man responsible for Cheez Doodles — was a reminder that the world of junk food is no different from celebrated American industries. The pioneers behind the automobile and the personal computer are household names, and their ingenuity and a-ha moments have become part of the folklore of American entrepreneurship. But the back story of junk food and fast food has its own moments of genius, serendipity and clever adaptations.

“I look at it as an incredible phenomenon that’s changed America, for better and worse,” said Andrew F. Smith, the author of the Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food.

Soft drinks, ready-to-eat hamburgers, salty snacks, ice cream and candy all fall under his definitions of junk and fast food — products that have little or no nutritional value or are high in calories and fat, or both. Putting health questions aside, here, then, are a few great moments in junk-food history:

1896

Two street vendor brothers — Frederick and Louis Rueckheim — sold a popcorn, molasses and peanuts confection at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. By 1896, they had perfected their recipe and called it Cracker Jack, and would soon repackage it for freshness and start advertising around the country. “They created a product that is commercially available nationally and salable,” said Mr. Smith, who considers Cracker Jack America’s first junk food.

1905

Tootsie Rolls, manufactured in New York City starting in 1905, changed junk food with one simple touch, and it had nothing to do with the chewy chocolate taste. It was the first penny candy to be individually wrapped.

1923

One unusually frigid night in San Francisco in 1905, 11-year-old Frank W. Epperson accidentally left a powdered-soda drink he had made for himself on the porch with the stirring stick still in the cup. The next morning, he awoke to find a frozen concoction, on a stick.

He tasted it. He showed it to his friends at school. And then he went on with his life, eventually going into real estate. It was not until 1923 that Mr. Epperson finally applied for a patent for his discovery. These days, Unilever sells two billion of them in the United States each year. Mr. Epperson initially called his product Epsicles. His children had another name: Pop’s ’sicles.

1928

Walter E. Diemer was a young man working as an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia. In his spare time, he began experimenting with recipes to produce a gum base that could be blown into bubbles. Months went by. When at last he had a good batch — stretchier than most gums at the time, and less sticky — he sent 100 pieces to a candy shop. The gum sold out in one afternoon.

Fleer started selling Mr. Diemer’s gum, calling it Dubble Bubble. Not everyone who invents a junk food that becomes a global sensation becomes a billionaire. Mr. Diemer received no royalties, and eventually retired from Fleer as a senior vice president in 1970.

At the retirement village in Lancaster, Pa., where he lived with his wife, he was known for presiding over bubble-blowing contests for children. “He was terrifically proud of it,” his wife, Florence Freeman Kohler Diemer, told The New York Times after Mr. Diemer’s death in 1998 at the age of 93. “He would say to me: ‘I’ve done something with my life. I’ve made kids happy around the world.’ ”

1930

James A. Dewar was the manager of a baking plant in Chicago during the Great Depression. He noticed that the shortcake pans that were used during the strawberry season sat idle the rest of the year. So he baked little cakes in the pans and injected them with a banana cream filling. He dubbed them Twinkies (a name inspired by a billboard he passed advertising Twinkle Toe shoes) and sold them two for a nickel.

The events that have defined America have had a way of influencing its junk food, too. When bananas were rationed during World War II, the banana cream center was replaced with vanilla cream. Today, Hostess bakes 500 million Twinkies a year.

At the age of 83, Mr. Dewar boasted that he ate at least three Twinkies a day. “I fed them to my four kids, and they feed them to my 15 grandchildren,” he said in an interview a few years before his death in 1985. “My boy Jimmy played football for the Cleveland Browns. My other son, Bobby, was a quarterback for the University of Rochester. Twinkies never hurt them.”

1976

7-Eleven convenience stores helped launch the era of fast-food and junk-food supersizing that continues today by introducing the 32-ounce Big Gulp. But even the Big Gulp seemed small after a while. In 1988, the company started selling the 64-ounce Double Gulp.

In junk food, as in Silicon Valley, creativity is limitless. In 1998, the Big Gulp cup was refined and redesigned. The new cup was taller, and now it fit in most car cup holders. Progress, of some sort, had been made.

Cheap, high-calorie food and drink has had an impact on the world’s health and perhaps even economy, but if you’re smart it could make you a tidy profit from this development. Here’s how.

What do Coca-Cola, Starbucks and McDonald’s have in common? They are loved by Americans and consumers throughout the globe, if their latest performance is anything to go by.

The fizzy-drinks maker and the world’s largest cafe chain both unveiled higher-than-expected quarterly profits this week. McDonald’s saw net income climb 12% in the second quarter, well ahead of forecasts.

While stock markets around the world have had a wild ride due to high unemployment, jitters over Europe’s debt crisis and signs that China’s growth is slowing, it seems that consumers have not given up Coke, lattes, muffins and Big Macs.

Solving an age-old investment conundrum
Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, believes the company has broken the historical correlation between downturns in consumer confidence and slowing sales: consumers might once have been quick to give up little luxuries like their daily cappuccino when money was tight, but not now.

Others say the recent downturn has buoyed the convenience food sector. “Consumers are choosing a reduced monetary spend over a reduced waistline,” said Phil Wong from stock broker Redmayne-Bentley.

“In the UK, Domino’s Pizza, for example, has demonstrated remarkable growth. A year ago the shares traded at 245p, but are now around 415p - a 69% increase.”

How Big Macs explain the economy

‘Globesity’ epidemic
Against this backdrop, it’s hardly surprising that waistlines around the world are expanding so rapidly that health experts have coined the term ‘globesity’.

One-third of the world’s adults are overweight and one in ten obese. The US and Britain are, unsurprisingly, among the 10 fattest nations worldwide, with 66.7% and 61% of their populations carrying excess weight, according to data from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Once seen as a quintessentially western phenomenon, obesity is fast becoming a major health concern in rapidly developing countries, like India and China, where fatter wallets are changing lifestyles.

“The global urban population is expected to grow from three billion to five billion by 2030, with the majority of this growth expected to come from developing countries. Companies such as McDonald’s are well positioned to benefit from that growth,” said Nicole Vettise, a portfolio manager for the JPM Global Consumer Trends fund, which has holdings in Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.

WHO estimates that, by 2015, the number of overweight adults will reach 2.3 billion - equal to the combined populations of China, Europe and America.

Bad for the economy
Obesity has serious economic consequences. Expanding waistlines cost the US economy $147 billion in 2008, almost double the $78.5 billion bill in 1998, according to RTI International.

The overall cost to the UK economy, allowing for time off work and early deaths, is estimated at £7 billion a year, including a £2 billion cost to the National Health Service. British government thinktank Foresight has estimated the epidemic could cost some £45.5 billion a year by 2050 if rates of obesity continue to climb.

Good for shareholders
The growing trend could help investors pile on pounds of a different variety. “The recent takeover of Cadbury provides another example of how exposure to potentially less healthy foods and snacks can be beneficial for investors,” said Keith Bowman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers.

“‘A little of what we like’ does generally appear to be good for investors. What we might categorise as ’sin’ stocks - tobacco, alcohol, snacks or fast food - often have qualities which appeal to investors: brand strength, strong cash-flows and progressive dividends.”

Kraft, the US food company, bought British confectioner Cadbury in a controversial £11.7 billion takeover in January, since when its shares have ticked up 6.4%.

Other stocks have piled on more: Coca-Cola Corp shares have risen 8.3% in the past 12 months, while McDonald’s Corporation sharesare up 20.9% and Starbucks shares have soared 48.2%. All are rated as a ‘buy’ by analysts polled by Reuters.

Buy and sell shares from £9.95

Food and drink beat ‘lost decade’
In the past decade companies in the food and drink sectors have hugely outperformed the market. The FTSE All-Share Sector Food Producer index is up 80.5% over 10 years and the FTSE All-Share Sector Beverages index has risen 150.8%, according to Alpha ShareScope. The FTSE All-Share Sector Tobacco index has made a stellar 378.5%.

At the same time, the FTSE All-Share Index has lost 14.2% - in what has been dubbed a ‘lost decade’ for investors.

Drug companies could profit
Rising obesity rates also have huge implications for firms in the healthcare sector and savvy investors could reap the rewards.

“Being overweight or obese leaves people at high risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and osteoarthritis and increases the likelihood of developing several types of cancer,” said Darius McDermott, managing director at discount broker Chelsea Financial Services.

“Many obese people will look to the quick-fix in drug therapies to control their bulging waistlines rather than changing their diets and taking more exercise. This means there’s a serious opportunity for drug companies to fatten their profits if they can get approval for new therapies.”

Not for faint-of-heart
This type of investment isn’t for the faint-hearted, though. Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that the first potential new prescription weight-loss pill in more than a decade works, sending shares in its maker, Vivus Inc, up 19.7%.

However, two days later the stock sunk 62% after the FDA said safety concerns about the drug outweighed its ability to help patients shed pounds.

Other fat-pill hopefuls are Arena Pharmaceuticals and Orexigen Therapeutics, whose shares have endured mixed fortunes. Arena’s shares are up 44.8% since the start of 2010, while Orexigen’s have tumbled 41%. Shares in Vivus have lost 46.1% over that period.

“Taking a bet on drug companies to grow their stock prices on the basis of pending FDA approbation is a high-risk strategy,” said McDermott.

Free guides to trading online

Healthcare stocks faring well
You could, instead, look to get limited exposure to the theme through a diversified fund operating in the health sector.

McDermott likes the Axa Framlington Health fund. Its analysts are currently examining innovative new treatments for obesity and the unit price is up 24.3% in the past year, according to fund data provider Trustnet.

Healthcare companies that produce treatments for diabetes, strokes, heart disease and joint replacements could also prove a stable bet. These include the likes of dialysis products and services firms DaVita, of the US, and Fresenius Medical Care, of Germany. Their shares have risen 23.8% and 31.2% respectively in the past year.

Shares in British medical device manufacturer Smith & Nephew are up 21.3% over 12 months, but those in Sanofi-Aventis, the Paris-based leader in diabetes treatment, which JPM Global Consumer Trends also invests in, are down 11.6%.

Beginning this week, kids craving a sweet snack or beverage during school are going to have a lot less options in Kansas.

The Kansas Board of Education recently approved new vending machine policies that take effect this month. It means soda and certain types of candy will no longer be available during the day at elementary and middle schools or until an hour after lunch in high schools.

David Smith is with the Kansas City, Kansas School District. He says the changes are a good thing, but he says he is worried about the potential financial impact.

“If those [vending] sales that we have previously been used to, if those don’t materialize in the same way, then we’re going to have schools that have an even more difficult challenge in terms of running their buildings and funding their activities,” Smith says.

Gary George, Assistant Superintendent with the Olathe School District, says he’s not anticipating a lot of changes as a result of the new rules.

“In fact I personally was surprised at the number of items that meet the nutritional requirements,” says George. “There are a variety of snack type items - even some cookies and so forth that appear to be acceptable under the new guidelines.”

George does say eliminating soda from vending machines will be a big deal for some schools in the district.

According to the Kansas Department of Education, most schools in the state already meet the new guidelines. But, even stricter rules will take effect by August of next year.

Specifically, schools must now meet ‘advanced’ guidelines. Next year, they’ll have to meet ‘exemplary’ guidelines.

Find more Health Coverage on KCUR.