It’s like “Top Chef,’’ but with food trucks. Thomas M. Menino is inviting vendors to compete in Boston’s inaugural summer Food Truck Challenge — the latest city effort to promote healthy eating. Three contestants will be selected in the fall for their healthy menus and creative business plans, and the winning food trucks will snag a coveted spot on City Hall Plaza starting next spring, as well as financial support from the city.

First lady Michelle Obama, continuing her campaign against childhood obesity, on Tuesday held a live Web chat on “the new and improved” LetsMove.gov, an interactive website designed to encourage children and their parents to exercise and make better choices in their diets… She discussed the main pillars of her campaign: educating parents, improving food in schools, expanding access to healthful food and promoting physical education.

Given that it’s so tough for the already-obese to shed weight, prevention would appear to be the key — and kids have been the primary focus of those efforts, including the White House’s own plan. But a study presented at an obesity conference in Sweden suggests the kind of community-based interventions that involve schools, parents and health-care institutions really work best in kids under age five.

A child obesity epidemic fed by fast food, sugary drinks and too much television threatens to create the first generation of American youths who live shorter lives than their parents, Michelle Obama said Monday. The first lady was keynote speaker at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's national convention in Kansas City. She spent much of her half-hour address discussing her "Let's Move" initiative to combat child obesity.

The residents of this town of 2,100 -- 95 miles southeast of Lexington and deep in the Appalachian foothills -- indeed appear to celebrate the joys of community closeness. The bake sales, the volunteering. But it's what goes uncelebrated, and even ignored, here that has become Manchester's defining feature: In an increasingly unhealthy country, it is one of the unhealthiest places of all.

Students at some Green Bay schools will learn about fruits and veggies and get a healthy mid-afternoon snack next school year. Nine elementary schools in the Green Bay School District have received grants through the federally funded Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program, which aims to provide healthy snacks and nutritional information for certain at-risk schools. The state allocates funds in the federal program to districts.

CVS is doubling the amount of nonperishable food it sells in 11 Chicago stores, while Walgreen is introducing fresh fruits, vegetables and new meal ingredients to 10 of its stores inside Chicago's food deserts, where healthy food choices are scarce.

A Boulder company's kid-friendly nutritional website is in the running for a $10,000 grand prize from Michelle Obama's campaign to combat childhood obesity. ZisBoomBah.com is one of 11 nationwide programs and the only entry accepted from Colorado in "The Apps for Healthy Kids" competition, a part of the first lady's Let's Move! The goal: developing engaging software that drives youths to eat better and be active.A Boulder company's kid-friendly nutritional website is in the running for a $10,000 grand prize from Michelle Obama's campaign to combat childhood obesity. ZisBoomBah.com is one of 11 nationwide programs and the only entry accepted from Colorado in "The Apps for Healthy Kids" competition, a part of the first lady's Let's Move! The goal: developing engaging software that drives youths to eat better and be active.

Children who regularly sit down to family meals and get plenty of vegetables in their diet tend to be thinner than their peers without such eating habits, a new study finds. The results, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, may not sound surprising. However, few studies have looked at the relationship between children's weight and their diet patterns -- which are more complex than, for example, sugar or fat intake.

Health advocates are involved in another season of rallying against the marketing of certain foods to kids. One California county this spring banned toys in most fast-food meals, while demonstrators in May called on Ronald McDonald to retire. In June, the Center for Science in the Public Interest threatened to sue McDonald's if it didn't stop using toys "to lure small children" to Happy Meals. On Wednesday, McDonald's responded, not with measured words but with a defiant defense of its kids meals, signaling another ramping up of the debate about whether it is appropriate to use advertising and the promise of a toy to entice children into wanting burgers, fries and the like.

Last month, Baltimore hired a food policy coordinator, making the city one of the first in the country with a paid "food czar." While Holly Freishtat's directive may be straightforward — get more healthy food on the tables of the people who need it — accomplishing it may not be.

American children are seeing fewer TV ads for candy and beverages, but more fast food commercials, finds a new study.

Editor’s Note: This study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its program Bridging the Gap.

From local pediatrician Dr. Michael Garver's perspective, a lot more has been done to collect statistics about childhood obesity than to solve the problem. "We need to stop measuring the problem," said Garver, of Premiere Care Pediatrics. "The time for implementation needs to begin." Garver's vision for helping decrease obesity in Great Falls is to create a multi-disciplinary obesity clinic.

By analogy with cigarettes, taxes on sodas might discourage people—especially young people—from consuming sugary drinks. This might help with weight issues.

Coca-Cola is out, and soy milk is now part of San Francisco's official city policy. Under an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange are no longer allowed in vending machines on city property, although their diet counterparts are - up to a point.

A government program aimed at curbing the disproportionately high rate of diabetes among Native Americans has only one year left, and supporters are urging its renewal. "The rate of those suffering from diabetes is alarming, and we need to continue to build on our efforts to combat it," said Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D. "We made some strides in improving health in Indian Country earlier this year with the passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act as part of comprehensive health care reform, but there is still a lot of work to do."

In the bleak cityscape of Philadelphia's poorer neighborhoods, the corner store is both convenience and curse, stocking milk and cheese, as well as junk food and cigarettes. Thanks to federal stimulus money recently pumped into the city, such stores may also start carrying healthier foods, like fresh produce.

Editor's Note: The Food Trust, mentioned in this article, is an RWJF grantee.

Q:Of all the health topics you can tackle, why childhood obesity?
A:Since 1980, obesity has doubled in adults and tripled in children. That, to me, is just astonishing. ... I certainly understand what parents are going through. They're very busy, and trying to juggle all these balls and keep them in the air is very hard. But the real thing is the long-term effects -- the heart disease, diabetes, the strokes, that as a doctor, I would be seeing in the next 10 years. That was really, really frightening.

Maine employers are already coping with rising costs related to overweight and obese workers. But they are in for a lot more if youth obesity rates stay as high as they are now, according to new research by the University of New England.

More than two-thirds of Texas schoolchildren flunked the state's physical fitness test this year, a troubling trend that doctors worry could get worse with the Legislature loosening the requirements for high school gym class.