Stone Soup Magazine: Giving Kids a Voice
Previously, we looked at ChopChop Magazine, specializing in “nutritional literacy,” which involves children to a very great extent. For instance, a child named Sally presents a series of “makeovers” in response to such requests as “I hate broccoli… I challenge you to make it taste good.” The print publication Stone Soup: The Magazine by Kids, […]
Of Current Interest: MEND
If you are in the United Kingdom, you’re in the midst of the National Childhood Obesity Week (July 4-10), originated by a group called MEND, which stand for “Mind, Exercise, Nutrition… Do it!” Events planned for this year included a new MEND Olympics program. In general, MEND promotes services designed to offer long-term solutions, mainly […]
Compulsive Eating: A Large Topic
As we mentioned before, the definitions of compulsive eating, compulsive overeating, and binge eating are a bit slippery, depending on whom you ask. One clue to the problem is the nature of the food in which people tend to overindulge. Zoe Harcombe, who characterizes herself as “a real food lover and a processed food hater,” […]
Think Tank Asks, What Works?
Housed at the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University, a group is looking for innovative and practical ways to end the obesity epidemic. Its purpose statement says, The Strategies to Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance is a collaboration of consumer, provider, government, labor, business, health insurers and quality-of-care organizations… […]
More Useful Things That Parents Can Do
In his book Possible Side Effects, Augusten Burroughs shares childhood memories of avoiding all of his mother’s efforts to feed him a healthy diet. Children can be cunning little people, as he proves in the essay called “The Wonder Boy.” Burroughs writes, She’d slip a carton of fresh beans or a head of broccoli into […]
Give Your Child a Baloney Detector
Kids have a natural talent for identifying baloney. They love to compare what parents say on Monday to what they say (or do!) on Tuesday, and if it doesn’t match up, look out! The average child possesses a highly developed critical sense that is constantly on the alert for adult self-contradiction, and especially for adult […]
Slate Magazine, Journalistic Activism, and Childhood Obesity
There is a type of journalism that discourages the public from thinking about certain things. In a print newspaper, a sensitive piece of news can be buried in the third or fourth section. If an announcement might provoke a lot of dissent, it can be held until the next giant headline-grabbing emergency is distracting everyone’s […]
Milk, Vitamin D, and Childhood Obesity
We’ve been looking at various proposed answers to the childhood obesity problem. A small percentage of babies could be helped by making sure that their bottle-feeding phase does not extend for much over a year, and should certainly be finished by age two. One of the reporters we consulted was Bill Taylor, whose article included […]
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 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 […]