Social Networking and Obesity, Part 5
All over the Web, people are sharing thoughts and emotions about their unhealthful and unnatural relationship with food, and especially their realization that food addiction is real. Unfortunately, many of these confessions are long on what the afflicted are “trying” and short on any revelations about what actually works. For instance, under the title of […]
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,” […]
Why Parents Don’t Want to Hear About Food Addiction, Part 5
Yes, we have talked before about why a lot of parents just don’t want to hear about food addiction. But there are so many reasons! Some parents don’t believe that food addiction exists. Some may accept the new paradigm in a general sort of way, and be willing to look through the “psychological food dependence-addiction […]
Snacks and Labels, Junk and Nature
In December, Bruce Horovitz reported on a rather interesting event, the announcement by Frito-Lay that the corporation will start making half of its snacks from all-natural ingredients. (Frito-Lay, incidentally, is part of PepsiCo, so you know what kind of natural, healthy credentials we’re talking about.) According to Ann Mukherjee, the chief marketing officer, there will […]
High Fructose Corn Syrup — Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Sometimes we get information overload fatigue, and we just don’t want to hear about one more thing that’s bad for us. We get tired of hearing bad news and just start filtering it out. Or we pick one bad thing to worry about, and let the other nine go and become someone else’s problem. But […]
Reviews, Presentations, & Publications
How gracious of Zoë Harcombe to send flattering words out into the world, in her review of Overweight: What Kids Say! For any author, the good opinion of a respected peer is a substantial reward. When that reviewer puts as much attention into the matter as this one did, it’s even more gratifying. And, by […]
Zoe Harcombe, or How to Not Be Big, Fat, and Stupid
Childhood obesity is just adult obesity getting an early start, and we had better get this thing figured out before 100% of us are overweight or obese. To encourage us, Justin Stoneman recently published an essay in The Huffington Post titled “America: A Big, Fat, Stupid Nation.” First of all, Stoneman is astonished that, with […]
Junk Food Indicted on Many Counts
You’ve heard about “negative-calorie” foods, which take so much energy to chew and/or digest that they actually burn more calories than they contain. Whether or not that’s valid, it’s an interesting concept, and a terminology that can be borrowed. Maybe some things should be defined as negative-value food. On one end of the spectrum, there […]
You and Umami: What the Heck Are We Eating?
We recently commented here on an article titled “Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” by Arun Gupta, one of The Indypendent’s founding editors. Democracy Now host Amy Goodman was impressed by that essay too, and consequently invited Gupta to be on her show, along with Dr. David Kessler. Arun Gupta talks about the highly […]