Cars, Clothes, and Obesity
Cars and clothes are two of the things most dear to the hearts of Americans. People actually believe such nonsense as “You are what you drive.” And “Clothes make the man (or woman).” So, imagine how unpleasant it must be to weigh 300 pounds in a society that worships hunks of metal with wheels and […]
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 […]
Roots of Childhood Obesity Found (or Not)
One amazing feature of the childhood obesity epidemic is that so many things correlate with it. When that happens, it’s always very tempting to assume a cause-and-effect relationship. Sometimes the relationship exists, other times not. Of course, poor nutrition (in the form of overfeeding and unhealthful choices) is the most glaringly obvious culprit. As a […]
How Addictive Is Sugar?
Marching down the left-hand side of the homepage at My Addiction, there is a list of nearly 30 possible addictions. Sugar addiction is not lumped in with food addiction or eating disorders. No, sugar addiction is in a category all its own. And if there is one single substance that correlates with childhood obesity, sugar […]
How Evil Is Sugar?
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’ […]
Taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Part 2
We are looking at the basic components of the controversy over taxing soda pop. Last time, we talked about why sugar-sweetened drinks, or SSDs, are particularly being singled out as childhood obesity villains, and how different jurisdictions have handled the question or are planning to address it. Now, let’s look at the corporate attitude, whether […]
Taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Part 1
Every time the idea of a tax on soda pop is mentioned, the debate grows lively and centers around some basic issues: Why pick on soda? Will people stand for it? Will food corporations put up with it? Has a soda tax actually been shown to reduce childhood obesity? The soda tax movement received a […]
Prenatal Measures to Prevent Childhood Obesity
In advanced cases of overweight, up to and including morbid obesity, in teenagers and adults, the answer becomes clear. Many, many people are addicted to food in the same way an alcoholic or cocaine addict is hooked. They can only help themselves through interventions that adhere closely to the classical 12-step program, especially effective in […]
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 […]
The Unhealthy Weight Epidemic
Not long ago, in England, a local government made international news by considering whether to ban the word “obesity” from use in the literature and media presentations of its pro-health campaigns. It’s not clear whether anything ever officially happened, but the big question is, why did the Liverpool City Council ever put this on the […]