The Gateway Drug: Sugar, Part 2
We left off last time suggesting that maybe it’s time to accept the fact that the widely rumored and much discussed Gateway Drug, spoken of in addiction medicine, is actually sugar. A baby needs to love sugar for survival. Imbibing that liquid, whether from a bottle or a breast, is the one job it has […]
Childhood Obesity and the Dark Matter Analogy
It has become obvious that diet and exercise are not the only factors contributing to obesity. There are some physiological states that can make a dangerous difference. Dr. Pretlow says, Such conditions as Cushing’s syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and hypothyroidism do exist. But pituitary, thyroid or adrenal gland metabolism disorders are significant in probably only a […]
The Most Addictive Substance
The more you look into the number one addictive substance behind childhood obesity, the more people you find who have seemingly devoted their entire lives and careers to the specific mission of warning us about it. Take Nancy Appleton, for instance. Her first book was Lick the Sugar Habit, and her most recent book is […]
Snacks and Labels, Junk and Nature
In December, Bruce Horovitz reported on a rather interesting event, the announcement by Frito-Lay that the corporation will start making half of its snacks from all-natural ingredients. (Frito-Lay, incidentally, is part of PepsiCo, so you know what kind of natural, healthy credentials we’re talking about.) According to Ann Mukherjee, the chief marketing officer, there will […]
High Fructose Corn Syrup — Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Sometimes we get information overload fatigue, and we just don’t want to hear about one more thing that’s bad for us. We get tired of hearing bad news and just start filtering it out. Or we pick one bad thing to worry about, and let the other nine go and become someone else’s problem. But […]
Let’s Hear It for the Early Adopters
It’s always a pleasure to discover another person who endorses the view that there is such a thing as food addiction; who, in other words, looks at the childhood obesity epidemic through the psychological food dependence-addiction lens. The medical profession tends to resist the idea, sometimes strenuously. Dr. Pretlow’s term for this unfortunate state of […]
Food, Foodlike Substances, and Labeling
When people are concerned about health, and especially about obesity, and they talk about food labeling, there are a couple of different things they might mean. Fast food restaurants with more than 20 branches now have to give the calorie count on their menus, and items sold in vending machines need to print the information […]