Is food abuse the same as food dependence? And doesn’t that phrase sound slightly absurd? After all, 100% of humans are food-dependent.

Is there such a thing as food addiction? Is it a substance addiction or a behavioral addiction, or a combination of the two? Or something else entirely?

It has been a while since addiction was discussed here, so the object of the next few posts is to catch up with ideas that people have had about the subject.

The struggle for recognition was not of the virus itself, of course, but of its insidious and invidious long-term effects.

A recent study of COVID-19 patients ages 12-17 found that of all underlying conditions, obesity was found to be the most common.

To arrive at understanding that what you eat affects everything, a lot, is one of the cruelest of life’s lessons.

Ultra-processed foods can be identified in a commercial setting by the lengthy lists of ingredients on the packaging, and often by the packaging itself.

Xand and Chris van Tulleken, the very media-savvy twin doctors with weight issues, have a complicated history regarding both obesity and each other.

Xand and Chris van Tulleken are identical twins, both doctors, so how did it get to where they were 42 years old and Xand outweighed Chris by 30 pounds?

Doctors and twins Xand van Tulleken and Chris van Tulleken produce a podcast and videos about their various excursions into the field of obesity prevention.

The public has become used to hearing about the unwisdom of the whole food-tampering enterprise, and also accustomed to not doing much about it.

The food industry engineers the natural flavor out and then adds chemicals supposed to taste like natural flavors. It sounds crazy because it is.

According to some people, this is a category of fad diet and ought to be shunned. According to others, it is the ultimate in self-care wisdom.

Should we eat potatoes at all? Is it ever okay to follow an all-potato diet? No doubt, experts will continue to wrangle over the essential truths of potatoes.

Are potatoes generally good or bad for weight loss? The issue is contentious.

… Or is it? That is the eternal question. Despite decades of scientific research, there are still as many theories about food as there are theorists.

Obesity and COVID-19 have a relationship that goes far beyond compatibility. What a perfect recipe for an ever-increasingly obese population.

Childhood obesity, already at an all-time high when the pandemic struck, is a prominent risk factor for catching the virus.

When authorities are deciding which children need to be hospitalized, obesity is a determinant. Diabetes also seems to get worse with COVID-19.

Obese people are more apt to catch COVID-19, more likely to get very sick, and more likely to die from it.

The adipose tissue components of fat live in various places, and fat distribution is influenced by hormones, heredity, and lifestyle.

Besides making you hate your jeans, fat can do a lot of things. Fat controls appetite and holds some sway over human emotions… and rationality itself.

Now is the time to prevent children from becoming the plump, tasty morsels of victimhood that the SARS-CoV-2 organism enjoys so much.

Long COVID tends to destroy careers, and the victims are not just people with low-income service jobs.

If the virus had eyes, its eyes would light up at the sight of a chubby child, and without waiting for an invitation, it would climb aboard.

People with diabetes are more likely to have severe cases of COVID-19, and this brings us back to the cozy relationship between COVID and obesity.

Long COVID symptoms may be falsely attributed to obesity alone, rather than share the responsibility with COVID. There is plenty of room for misdiagnosis.

Compared to less weighty people, the obese are more likely to get PASC, also known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2., or Long COVID.

Obesity helps COVID, and COVID returns the favor by helping fat. Here’s how.

Long COVID can follow children for years, leading to cardiac, pulmonary, or cognitive rehabilitation therapy.