As with any other subject important to humans, personal testimony carries (excuse the expression) a lot of weight. Today’s peek at social networking includes examples of individual stories meant to hearten and encourage others who have had enough of obesity and/or food addiction. People share their epiphanies: I realized yesterday after a family dinner that [...]
Social Networking and Obesity, Part 1
July 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The overall mission of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is to explore the impact of the Internet on children, families, and communities. Last month, they released the report “Social networking sites and our lives.” The 85-page PDF file is subtitled, “How people’s trust, personal relationships, and civic and political involvement are connected [...]
Publication in Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention
June 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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 [...]
The Gateway Drug: Sugar, Part 2
June 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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 [...]
How It Might Be
June 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In Chapter 5 of Overweight: What Kids Say, Dr. Pretlow discusses some conclusions drawn from what is said by obese kids when they talk anonymously amongst themselves. This happens, for instance, on the message boards of the Weigh2Rock website. It seems that young daughters and sons are unable to talk to their parents. (Usually, the [...]
Parents as Enablers and Saboteurs, Part 2
June 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The illustration on this page could be read in a couple of ways: one person might see a delicious Mother’s Day treat made specially for Mom. Which is probably what the photographer intended. Someone with a darker imagination — and you can picture this taking place in a psychiatrist’s office — might look at it [...]
Parents as Enablers and Saboteurs, Part 1
June 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Parents want to know what to do about childhood obesity. The answers are difficult ones because most of them involve a change in philosophical outlook and/or everyday behavior — a change made by parents, that is. When we parents set out to fix our kids, we often run up against the uncomfortable truth that we [...]
More Useful Things That Parents Can Do
June 10, 2011 By 1 Comment
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
June 9, 2011 By 3 Comments
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 [...]
The Cookie Monster Controversy – Where Do You Stand?
February 23, 2011 By 4 Comments
Somewhere in the mid-2000s, a disturbance was caused in American culture when a Sesame Street character, Cookie Monster, became aware of the childhood obesity epidemic. Famous for his exclusive preference for cookies, he switched gears and began eating other foods as well. His new message was: “Cookies are a sometimes food.” He made public service [...]
