Why Parents Don’t Want to Hear About Food Addiction, Part 7

Saint-Quentin

Many parents have heard about food addiction, just like they have heard of other theories and discoveries in the childhood obesity field. And, for some, there is a compelling reason not to think about the food addiction paradigm as it applies to the lives of their own children. It’s the same reason why we find […]

The Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm, Part 5

Storm Brisbane

The childhood obesity perfect storm continues — the combination of circumstances that have accumulated to bury children in layers of fat, and not only our own home-grown American children, but children all over the world. Something very ominous is happening, and it’s almost like a corny old science fiction story from a pulp magazine. What […]

ChopChop, the Nutritional Literacy Self-Help Magazine for Kids

Girl in Hat Eating an Apple

There are 28 million school-age children in the U.S., Sally Sampson says, and she wants every single one of them to have a copy of her magazine, ChopChop, whose mission is to reverse and prevent childhood obesity. It’s a quarterly, and the first issue came out in April of 2010, aimed at an audience of […]

McDonald’s Still Making News as Childhood Obesity Culprit

Fallen Arches

An Associated Press news article from Sao Paulo, Brazil, recently reported that a McDonald’s manager successfully sued the company for making him obese. He worked there for 12 years, and packed on 65 pounds while diligently sampling each day’s fare to make sure that it tasted good. The free lunches granted to employees helped, too. […]

A Psychological Problem, Not a Nutritional Problem

A Matched Set

“Will Marriage Make You Fat?” is the question asked by Cynthia Ramnarace in an article that follows the histories of three different couples. She got interested in the emotional basis of obesity because of something she read: A 2008 study in the journal Obesity showed that couples that lived together more than two years — […]

Why Parents Don't Want to Hear About Food Addiction, Part 4

fat kid with donuts

Ever since Freud, parents just can’t seem to catch a break. Every time we turn around, somebody finds another reason to blame us for yet another deficiency in our children. Like in the picture here, why is this rather chunky boy wearing a necklace of doughnuts? However, we can’t prevent or find out about a lot […]

An Interview With Raj Patel

Junk Food on the Midway

Raj Patel is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Sadly, this interview with Patel was conducted not by us, but by Onnesha Roychoudhuri. Her work appears via Alternet, publisher of this piece, and in Salon, Mother Jones, and many other major publications. Patel’s book intends to stir […]

Recognition of Food Addiction Paradigm Urgently Needed

grim reaper

It’s a lens, a filter, a point of view, a set of new eyes, a new set of mind. It’s the psychological food-dependence-addiction lens. Whatever you like to call it, it is very much needed. So many children and teenagers are drowning in fat, and they’re doing it in parts of the world that never […]

Hospitals and Fast Food

Ronald McDonald House Birmingham

Dr. Davis Liu is a family physician with the Permanente Medical Group and the author of Stay Healthy, Live Longer, Spend Wisely, which is about making intelligent choices in the healthcare system of America as we currently know it. In the piece we’re looking at today, he says, The real question is whether our corporations […]

Fast Food, Hospitals, and Cravings

Blizzard cup

Fast food and hospitals are the two concepts that should not be found together in the same sentence. And yet, their relationship grows cozier all the time. It was with some dismay that Dr. Pretlow recently noticed a TV commercial for the Blizzard Children’s Miracle Network. Actually, the word that came to mind was “disgusted.” […]