Americans eat way too much salt. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 90% of Americans consume more sodium than the recommended 2,300mg per day. This is a huge public health problem because excess sodium leads to high blood pressure, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. While many of us know to limit the amount of salt we sprinkle on our food, this will do little to address the problem because 70% of the sodium in our diet comes from packaged and restaurant foods. If we want to reduce sodium consumption, we should focus less on how we prepare food for ourselves at home and worry more about what companies put in our food. But how do we get them to change?
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 Kristina Lewis, MD, MPH, SM Despite a good run of over 50 years in the business, McDonald’s decided late in 2016 that the services of its friendly, funny clown, Ronald McDonald, were no longer required. The clown, it seems, had become a threat to public health. Why? Not because he was pushing trans fats on toddlers, selling sodas to six-year-olds, and hawking hamburgers to high-schoolers. Rather, this sudden call to action by McDonald’s execs was out of grave concern that Ronald might be.......scaring people (Gasp!!) After a series of creepy clown sightings across the United States last fall, it was felt that Ronald’s continued presence as a McDonald’s ambassador might be upsetting to children.
 Whatever your take on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Syrian refugee crisis, or the bailout of Wall Street, there is probably at least one area where we can (mostly) agree that the Obama Administration has earned high marks over the past 8 years – Obesity. Michelle Obama, with her “Let’s Move” campaign, has been a champion for healthful dietary choices and physical activity, with a strong focus on obesity prevention in children. As great as this has been for those of us who research, treat, or are generally passionate about obesity, the era is now coming to an end. Entering the heart of the 2016 presidential campaign, I often find myself wondering – how will Obama’s successor deal with this important issue? Will the nation’s current laser focus on health and wellness fade into the background as a new family, with new issues to promote, moves into the White House?
 Beginning on December 1 in New York City, food items that are extremely high in sodium acquired a warning label. Specifically, any item that contains more than a full day’s worth of recommended sodium (>2300mg) will now have to be labeled with a somewhat innocuous image of a salt shaker, and the slightly less-subtle warning message: “High sodium intake can increase blood pressure and risk of heart disease and stroke”.
 With the recent news that the FDA has demanded that trans fats –fats found in margarine, and in many processed foods as partially hydrogenated oil -- be removed from the US market within 3 years, I was afraid that my mother had been correct in telling me to limit my fat intake while I was growing up. As a teenager growing up in the 1970s, she was coming of age when the first set of dietary guidelines called for Americans to limit how much fat they ate. This advice stuck with her through adulthood when she eventually became a mother and did her best to raise healthy kids.
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