The Perfect Storm Revisited
A meme is like a mental gene, a little packet of information that carries a cultural idea from one mind to another. The “perfect storm” meme illustrates a truth that has been around forever, in an original way that can be adapted to many situations. Bob Case, a meteorologist, is credited for naming it in […]
Ghrelin, Comfort Eating, and Obesity (Part 1)
The word “fasting” may call up visions of a strict religious practice or some elaborate health-oriented routine involving a carefully calibrated number of ounces of fresh juice per day. A person might think, “I don’t know anybody who does that.” Maybe not, but voluntarily abstention from food for a period of time is actually pretty […]
What Can Be Learned From Kirstie Alley?
Entertainment writer Jennifer Graham Kizer composed a splendid history of actress Kirstie Alley’s second career as an obese person: Showtime’s 2005 funny-but-short-lived scripted series, ‘Fat Actress,’ loosely chronicled the Emmy winner’s travails as an overweight Hollywood star. Off the set, Alley also became a spokesperson for Jenny Craig’s weight loss program. By 2006, the ‘Cheers’ […]
Comfort Eating and Kirstie Alley
Actress Kirstie Alley is a wild woman who has freely admitted to an interviewer, “It was the greatest thing in the world getting fat.” But being fat? Not so much. Still, if there is one public figure (besides Oprah Winfrey) whose every ounce of gain and loss has been tracked, minute by minute, by millions […]
Chips = The Biggest Demon
We told you. Didn’t we tell you? Now, here is Alicia Chang saying the same thing, a propos of a Harvard University study which appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine. Its title is “Changes in Diet and Lifestyle and Long-Term Weight Gain in Women and Men,” and Chang, who frequently writes about science, […]
Publication in Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention
A while back, we mentioned that Dr. Pretlow’s latest paper was due to be published by Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. The future has become the present, and the document is now online. (The print version of Volume 19 #4, July/Aug/Sept. 2011 will be available in about a month.) Dr. Pretlow is […]
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,” […]
The Thing About Compulsive Overeating
The thing about compulsive overeating is, there are a lot of things about it. It’s a very hefty subject with many fascinating areas of inquiry. For women, the hormones involved in the monthly cycle are implicated as compulsive-eating triggers. But males can be compulsive eaters, too — what’s up with that? What does it mean […]
Think Tank Asks, What Else Works?
Last time, we looked at the aims of the STOP Obesity Alliance, starting with the encouragement of more physical activity on general principles, because of the overall superiority of fitness over unfitness. The Alliance is in favor of “different approaches” to obesity, one of which is to “redefine success.” Obviously, success can’t be verified and […]
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… […]