We saw how fathers can genetically influence the weight of their children, or at least the weight of their daughters, as shown by an Australian study. Medical Xpress recently wrote about the work being done at University College London with genome-wide …

There are studies showing that poverty correlates with childhood obesity. For instance, in 2010 Harvard Medical School issued study results that showed: […] black and Hispanic children were more likely than white children to have gained weight rapidl …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News considered a study that showed the stress of poverty leading to depressed mothers and overfed, obese infants. Now, what about the effect of financial rewards on adults? The Mayo Clinic did a study that included 100 emp …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at a study from the University of Leipzig showing that lower socioeconomic status is linked to overweight — more so than the lack of physical activity. Dr. Candice Taylor Lucas, of the New York University Schoo …

One of the problems with early intervention in childhood obesity is that any program a school, day care center, or wellness center might implement, is likely to meet with objections from someone who wants to throw a monkey wrench into it for a pragmati …

“Early intervention” seems to be one of those abstract concepts, like world peace, that everyone is theoretically in favor of, but nobody seems to quite know how to achieve. Early intervention involves a vast territory. It impinges on the areas of medi …

When the Institute of Medicine issued the report, “Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Policies,” Dr. Wendy Slusser of the UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital said something interesting. As trusted adults who share responsibility for noticing a child’s risk …

Over the past couple of years, many health care professionals studying childhood obesity have arrived at “early intervention” as their takeaway. According to the statistics, each year farther back toward birth that treatment begins, the odds improve. I …

Early intervention to avoid childhood obesity is a hot topic. The reason is obvious, and expressed by the old proverb, “A stitch in time saves nine.” In other words, if the edge of your pocket is starting to tear, sew it up, because once that little te …

Recently, reports appeared of a new study of childhood obesity, which is described as: […] the first comprehensive national profile of associations between weight status and a broad set of associated health conditions, or co-morbidities, that kids su …

Childhood Obesity News has mentioned various aspects of the EarlyBird Study and one of the most important is the fact that dietary habits are established very early in a child’s life. Once established, they tend to be retained. If children’s habits cha …

This new webinar is called “The Epidemic of Childhood Obesity: What’s Our Plan?” and although Dr. Pretlow designed it for health care professionals, it’s probably safe to say that most parents feel they are included in that group — they have certainly …

Yesterday we looked at “catfishing,” which basically is going online and fooling another person into believing you’re someone you are not. Often, when people fall in virtual love, it turns out that one of them is up in the plus sizes, and hiding behind …

Although catfishing has existed as long as the Internet, the actual name by which the cultural phenomenon will forever be known was not decided until 2010. This happened thanks to an indie documentary film made by Henry Joost, Ariel (Rel) Schulman, and …

In her book, Constant Craving, Doreen Virtue discussed in great detail the differences between physical hunger and emotional hunger. Why is this important? Because emotional neediness is one of the things that can lead a child or adult to food addictio …

Remember Dara-Lynn Weiss, who was called “Monster-Mutter #1” by a German newspaper, and lots of other uncomplimentary names by the press all over the world? This was last spring, when Vogue magazine published what Weiss wrote about childhood obesity in …

When this article was published by Today, April Fools Day was still a week in the future, so it was meant to be taken seriously. The title, “Junk food might not be addictive, after all,” makes an assumption. It hints that belief in the addictiveness of …

Sometimes it seems like research is just one big landscape of shifting sands. A unit of knowledge that seems airtight can be reversed within months. Another possibility is for empirical evidence to be conclusive, but nobody is quite sure what it’s conc …

The past few months brought news that breastfeeding is perhaps not all it was cracked up to be — at least not when the goal is the prevention of childhood obesity. The halo that surrounds breastfeeding may not shine so brightly — but some would say t …

Okay, we have learned that exercise may or may not affect obesity. When a child’s tonsils are surgically removed it may or may not increase the likelihood of obesity. School and community programs designed to alleviate obesity may or may not backfire. …

Just imagine: 1.3 billion tons is a lot of food, and that amount goes to waste around the world in a year. Not only is there no place to put so much garbage, but, come to think of it, it shouldn’t even be garbage. Here are the words of a company that i …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned the discouraging words heard from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. A study originating there showed that, of parents whose kids went to a school with an obesity intervention program, 30% of those parents we …

In 2009, a South African health and life insurance company started a health promotion program. Customers who signed up received a benefit called HealthyFood, by which various discounts were given via a grocery corporation’s approximately 800 stores. At …

Childhood Obesity News has been considering the proposition that networking via social media can have a bit of a dark side. Electronic shenanigans have given advertisers more opportunities to slide their blandishments into the consciousnesses of childr …

In the realm of childhood obesity research, it seems like April Fool’s Day comes around pretty often. Time after time, a study seems to indicate some hopeful discovery, which turns out to be not an advance but a false alarm. Most people seem to have as …

In a study of more than 1,000 young users of the social network platform Facebook, researchers found that (in the demographic being studied) the opinion of a “strongly tied” friend means more than the opinion of a “weak tie.” A lot of people might be i …

Childhood Obesity News has been exploring the many advantages and benefits of networking with social media. But rarely is a blessing unalloyed in this world. The whole social media revolution arrived with its own set of ready-made problems, though not …

Lisa Lillien, a former Hollywood executive, segued into being a “foodologist” who specializes in making low-calorie foods taste as satisfying as high-calorie foods. Before long, she had turned that talent into what The Huffington Post writer John Roger …

Readers of Childhood Obesity News will recall Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, which documented the filmmaker’s adventure as a human lab rat. He ate nothing but McDonald’s fare for a month, gained 25 pounds, sustained liver damage, and when he quit, exp …

Books are of course a much older form of media than some of the others that Childhood Obesity News has looked at. Despite the existence of so many other communication avenues, books are still happening. Several have appeared on the scene in the past fe …