Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News discussed how Dr. Pretlow was interviewed for a school assignment by 13-year-old Heidi Zahnleuter. In the finished paper, she writes of the importance of motivation: The key factor to losing weight is to be motivated. …

On many occasions Dr. Pretlow has been called upon by young students completing school assignments. The most recent was 13-year-old Heidi Zahnleuter who turned in a paper on childhood obesity that looked into such matters as whether watching TV or inte …

At UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory, a team looked into how sleep deprivation impairs the brain, specifically in regard to food choices. Twenty-three adults took part, undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging after a good night’s …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at earlier work done by the STRONG Kids Project in its attempt to identify the main causes of childhood obesity. This research program is hosted by the University of Illinois, and its name is short for Synergist …

Mens sana in corpore sano — that’s Latin for “a healthy mind in a healthy body,” and to make it through the holidays, you need both. For the healthy body, getting enough sleep is paramount. Focus on such concepts as trip consolidation and creative ch …

In a Forbes article a few weeks back, Kate Harrison made a cogent point: “Halloween is our annual free-for-all, but what starts as a one-night binge can quickly stretch out into months of sugar overload.” For a lot of Americans, it’s all too true. Even …

One thing that humans do is, we fool ourselves into thinking that after some arbitrary and magical date — January 1, for instance — everything will change and we will do things differently. As parents, we convince ourselves to believe that after the …

Culturally sensitive disclaimer: Whenever the word “Christmas” occurs here, please feel free to mentally substitute any holiday of your choice — because this is exactly the point. Cultures and religions have their festive holidays, the times for gathe …

In November, Dr. Tom O’Bryan of theDr.com gathered 29 researchers, clinicians and nutritionists to pool their intellectual and experiential resources for a Gluten Summit. Rye and barley also contain the protein they deem toxic, but wheat is by far the …

What’s so bad about gluten? Well, nothing, according to mainstream medicine and Dr. Pretlow. The idea that gluten has particularly harmful qualities is not universally accepted. The majority opinion is that obesity results from eating too much food, i. …

In the science of forensics, transfer theory holds that a criminal will always leave trace evidence at the crime scene. A person with celiac disease has to be as suspicious and hyper-vigilant as a detective dusting for fingerprints. If the grocery stor …

In 2011, William Davis, M.D., published the book Wheat Belly, whose message is that “over-consumption of wheat is the main cause of the obesity and diabetes crisis in the United States.” Some of his medical peers are uncomfortable with assigning so muc …

As we have seen, one school of thought holds that gluten is addictive. A lot of foodstuffs (as well as myriad other products) contain gluten, and gluten critics say the substance is what causes so many people to be addicted to certain foods. Any doubt …

The best way to avoid foods that are bad for you is to stay away from foods with health claims on the label. They are usually hiding something bad. What a powerful quotation! These are the words of Dr. Mark Hyman, who, like Dr. Pretlow, has written and …

As a childhood obesity villain, gluten is one of the “usual suspects” and Childhood Obesity News has looked at the case against it before. InsuliteLabs.com takes an especially dim view of gluten: As many as 75% of overweight and obese people in the U.S …

One thing to keep in mind, always, is that children are different from grownups. They do go through what used to be called “phases” and are apt to try out and then quickly discard behaviors as part of their natural development. Another thing to remembe …

Although obesity is the second most widespread cause of preventable death in the United States, many people still disagree over the American Medical Association’s June decision to classify obesity as a disease. Licensed mental health counselor William …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News discussed a Contemporary Pediatrics article in which Dr. Pretlow was generously quoted. The substantial piece, by Lisette Hilton, went on to examine an aspect of treatment that’s not often mentioned — the difficulty d …

The September issue of Contemporary Pediatrics rounded up the opinions of several experts on the question of how to make a difference in reducing the alarming rate of childhood obesity. The author, Lisette Hilton, found that they agree on one thing: te …

As Childhood Obesity News has been discussing, the city-state of Singapore is quite serious about lowering its childhood obesity rate, and is pursuing that goal with a two-pronged strategy. One prong is more physical fitness for all citizens — regardl …

KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore identifies the primary causes of childhood obesity as environmental: An abundance of food allows for excessive intake of food from all food groups, especially fats. A diet high in fat is associated with i …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at some of the programs implemented by the government of Singapore over the past few years to prevent childhood obesity. We also got a glimpse of the future plan slated to begin in the new year, a physical educa …

In 2010, the Asian Journal of Exercise & Sports Science published a lengthy report authored by eight experts titled “Obesity Prevention in Singapore: Collaborative Efforts Among Government, Health Professionals and the Community.” The authors ident …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at Singapore’s 15-year experiment that ended when a government that is often perceived as oppressively authoritarian made a surprising reversal. Under the “Trim and Fit” (TAF) program, the policy had been to clos …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News discussed the Trim and Fit program that had been in place in Singapore schools since 1992, in which overweight children were required to do extra physical education activities and have their caloric intake monitored wh …

GuideMeSingapore.com tells us that the island city-state contains more than 4,500 food and beverage establishments, “from hawker stalls to fine dining restaurants.” About 14% of tourist expenditure winds up in the bank accounts of these eateries. Forme …

Carnie Wilson is worth thinking about because she is iconic. She’s talented, upfront and a real trooper who may be one of the hardest-working women in show business. “Relatability” is a very important quality in the entertainment world, and plus-size w …

A while back, Childhood Obesity News traced the career of singer and actor Carnie Wilson as a professional obese person — unfortunately, that seems to be the role the media have assigned her. As an aspiring artist, she almost certainly never intended …

At age 14, Taylor LeBaron weighed nearly 300 pounds. His accomplishment was to cut his body weight in half; his goal is to help other young people do the same. He became a college student and, on the side, a motivational speaker. Daisy Dumas of the Dai …

Dance Dance Revolution isn’t exactly Grand Theft Auto, but is a game in the sense that a player accumulates points by hitting spots on a special mat, according to the directions issued by a video console. Back in 2010, researchers at West Virginia Univ …