Famous Food Addict Carnie Wilson

Christmas in Harmony

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 […]

Reviews, Presentations, Publications

Here is a very exciting development. Dr. Robert Pretlow’s “Addiction To Highly Pleasurable Food as a Cause of The Childhood Obesity Epidemic: A Qualitative Internet Study” will be published in the summer edition of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. The study, which will appear in Volume 19, #4 (In Press) July/Aug/Sept 2011, […]

Oprah and the Weight Loss Surgery Kids

new bike

This episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired a while back, but it’s a classic. Oprah invited some formerly obese teens, a couple of parents, and a couple of doctors — including Dr. Mehmet Oz, who hangs out in the audience contributing medical illumination when needed. The show also features some very useful animated graphics […]

Media Reactions to Yale Food Addiction Study

Burger King Cup Cake Sundae Shake

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

Saint Lucia Day 4

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 […]

Weight Loss Surgery, Part 5

Leaders Eat Ice Cream

In “Weight Loss Surgery, Part 4,” we looked at the experiences of some grownups with bariatric surgery. But what about the kids? Is weight loss surgery (WLS) recommended for obese children and youth? Dr. Laurie Barclay discussed this for Medscape not long ago, summarizing research that had been reported in the medical journal Clinical Obesity. […]

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, […]

Things Parents Can Do at Home

Kevin Fears He'll Die of Obesity

There are plenty of things parents can stop doing. Obesity is bad enough; a kid doesn’t need nagging too. But today, we’re talking about things that parents can actively do. Aracelly Clouse is a personal fitness trainer in California, who also writes about such specialized topics as places for cheap family outings in her area, […]

Why Parents Don’t Want to Hear About Food Addiction, Part 5

reactionary

Yes, we have talked before about why a lot of parents just don’t want to hear about food addiction. But there are so many reasons! Some parents don’t believe that food addiction exists. Some may accept the new paradigm in a general sort of way, and be willing to look through the “psychological food dependence-addiction […]

Comfort Eating and Regular People

comfort food

The psychological food dependence-addiction lens is a new and still somewhat unpopular paradigm, because it has to do with addiction to food as the cause of much obesity. Looking through that lens, we see that while legislative measures are useful, what really needs to be addressed is the tendency of people to become addicted, at […]