Ending Childhood Obesity Through Healthy Eating & Exercise?
I recently witnessed two teenagers in a group, one advising the other how to lose weight. The first teen glibly proclaimed, All you gotta do is eat healthy and exercise! Whereupon, the second teen indignantly retorted, That is sooo not it!!! I know what to eat, I just can’t resist bad food!! And exercise is, […]
Does Dr. Evil Work for the Food Industry?
Dr. Janet Hull holds a Doctorate in Nutrition and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science, and is a Licensed Certified Nutritionist. She is one of the leading opponents of the artificial sweetener aspartame, and is also against the presence of caffeine in processed foods and soft drinks. And what’s wrong with that? Dr. Hull says, […]
Hyperpalatable Foods: Science or Science Fiction? Part 3
Childhood obesity, adult obesity, food addiction, processed food, chemicals, and corporations… all these things and more are inextricably entwined, and their relationship gives rise to many questions. Like, are they putting stuff in food to make it addictive, on purpose? What is the probability level of that happening? There used to be a widespread urban […]
Hyperpalatable Foods: Science or Science Fiction? Part 2
A lot of creativity goes into persuasion, as in advertising and marketing fast foods, and a lot of originality goes into efforts to deal with the obesity epidemic. A great deal of creative energy is found in the projects of Public Matters, an organization described thusly: Public Matters is an interdisciplinary California-based social enterprise comprised […]
Hyperpalatable Foods: Science or Science Fiction? Part 1
What do we know about the chemical commonly known as salt? According to David Kessler, the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, over-eating might be due to… the combination of fats, sugars and salt used by food manufactures to trigger a ‘bliss’ point in the human brain. Sarah Hughes said that, in […]
The Nature of Food Addiction
Relatively speaking, one of the disadvantages of food addiction is that obesity often follows. Plenty of alcoholics are able to hide their condition. People who are hooked on street drugs or prescription meds are often able to function in society without being recognized as addicts. But food addiction shows. Picture a 400-pound guy on a […]
Famous Food Addict Carnie Wilson
Carnie Wilson’s dysfunctional relationship with her world-renowned musician father was, she feels, the root cause of her lifelong struggle with eating disorders. Then in 1993, her own singing group broke up. A couple of years later, Wilson admitted that she was a 300-pound food addict, and began to explore bariatric surgery as an option. She […]
Media Reactions to Yale Food Addiction Study
We talked last time about the validation given by the recent Yale study, to the idea that food addiction is a reality for some people. Of course, the story was immediately picked up and expanded on by numerous other media, all with their own particular slants. For basic information about how the study was conducted, […]
It’s Official: Food Addiction Is Real
Well, better late than never! Dr. Robert A. Pretlow, numerous other medical professionals, and very many obese people (whose experiences were previously dismissed as “anecdotal evidence” and “non-validated data”) have been saying for years that food addiction is as real as any other officially identified addiction. It is a problem most appropriately viewed through the […]
A Chance to Heal: Be There or Be Square
A Chance to Heal is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation that originated in the mind of Rachel Silver. As a 17-year-old, Silver needed help to treat her eating disorder, and her position in life was such that money was no object. But not everyone is in such a comfortable situation. While undergoing her own treatment, Rachel […]