How Evil Is Sugar?

Sugar Balls

How evil is sugar? Let us count the ways. Or rather, sing along as Gary Taubes counts them. Taubes is an independent investigator in health policy, connected with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is of course deeply concerned with the obesity epidemic and is constantly exploring ways to put an end to it. Taubes’ […]

Weight Loss Surgery, Part 4

Sunbather

Why does food have such a powerful effect on people? Overeating and consequent obesity can lead to a juncture in life’s pathway where surgery becomes a very real possibility. The relationship between a person and food can get really twisted. There are people who actually gain weight intentionally, so they can qualify for surgery under […]

Sweets for the Suicidal

Addiction

Any obesity-conscious person will encounter the artificial sweetener dilemma, and anybody who looks into it will probably decide to stay away from the stuff, if at all possible. The trouble is, it’s in more than 6,000 food products, as we mentioned before, along with other aspects of aspartame and its spawn — Equal, NutraSweet, Canderel, […]

The Unnatural Sweetener

Artificial Sweetener Packet Tablecloth

A disturbing aspect of childhood obesity is that, in an attempt to avoid it, children are ingesting large amounts of aspartame (marketed as Equal, NutraSweet, Canderel, Equal-Measure, Spoonful, Benevia, etc.) and other sweeteners that have really bad health consequences. One of the most vocal critics of aspartame, Dr. Joseph Mercola, certainly has a way of […]

Many Doctors Believe Food Can Be Addictive

Doctor Hand

Can food be addictive in the same way as, for instance, heroin? Many doctors believe that it can. While some people are not very addiction-prone, others are, but are too busy being junkies involving some other substance, and food doesn’t do a thing for them. Not every person who eats is a food addict. But […]

Reviews, Presentations, & Publications

How gracious of Zoë Harcombe to send flattering words out into the world, in her review of Overweight: What Kids Say! For any author, the good opinion of a respected peer is a substantial reward. When that reviewer puts as much attention into the matter as this one did, it’s even more gratifying. And, by […]

Food, Foodlike Substances, and Labeling

fast food

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 […]

Junk Food Marketing: You Are the Target

pharmacy

It’s bad enough that we are surrounded by the brightly colored packages of products that barely qualify as edible, no matter how many cartoon characters may decorate them. What a great recipe for childhood obesity, adult obesity, and the endless complications of the multiple disease processes! But no, that’s not enough to contend with. We’re […]

Labels, Food Addiction, and the FDA

Carbs Nation

Here’s an insightful piece by Adi Narayan, who habitually writes about science and medicine for Time. Called “Building a Better Label,” it is, not surprisingly, all about the rules set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the nutritional information required on food packaging. I, for one, learned something from it: The recently passed […]