Are Kids Overdiagnosed and Overmedicated Into Obesity?

Blue and Green

A reader who wanted to be anonymous wrote by email: So many doctors and parents are quick to run for that medicine cabinet! My niece is on so many prescriptions, it is startling, to say the least. Gross amount, seriously! All of them for ‘behavior’ problems like attention disorder, anger, depression… don’t get me started […]

The Gateway Drug: Sugar, Part 2

Joy...

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 […]

Hyperpalatable Foods: Science or Science Fiction? Part 2

Persuade Me

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 […]

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 […]

Wake Up and Smell the Food Addiction

In the Food Line

“Is food addiction real?” This question is posed by Jennifer LaRue Huget in The Washington Post, and it is a question relevant to numerous other journalists, health professionals, educators, bureaucrats, researchers, parents across the nation, and, yes, the world. It’s also an important question to an ever-growing population of children who are experiencing obesity and […]

Dietary Fat as Obesity Villain

Let’s see what Dr. Mark Hyman, founder of The UltraWellness Center, has to say. We have quoted him before, by the way, on the subject of food addiction. He and Dr. Pretlow share an interesting characteristic. Neither of them are prejudiced against what some medical practitioners dismissively call “anecdotal evidence.” On the contrary, they are […]

Prediction for 2011: Food Addiction Will Still Exist

Dinosaur Exhibition Beijing

Dr. Mark Hyman does not speak in polite euphemisms, but titles an essay in the bluntest terms, “Food Addiction: Could It Explain Why 70 Percent of Americans Are Fat?” Yes, it could! This is what Dr. Pretlow has been saying all along. There really is such a thing as food addiction, and the sooner we […]