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 throu …

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 t …

In the Journal of Pediatrics, Brigid Huey begins by explaining this particular aspect of the childhood obesity puzzle: Experts agree that obesity prevention should begin before children enter school. But due to a lack of conclusive data, health care pr …

Kathleen Blanchard, a Registered Nurse and freelance health author, reports for EmaxHealth on a study compiled by the Cardiovascular Center at the University of Michigan, which says it is extremely rare to find a genetic basis for childhood obesity. Bl …

Does anything work to prevent childhood obesity? Once it has taken hold, can anything pull a child loose from its clutches? As many thousands of years as humans have been on earth, you’d think we would have figured this thing out by now. What kind of n …

The Weigh2Rock website has invited kids aged 18 and under to download the PDF version of Dr. Robert A. Pretlow’s book, Overweight: What Kids Say, for free. Since then, kids residing in countries like Great Britain, Canada, and Australia, as well as the …

Jennifer Joyner is Assignment Editor at WRAL-TV in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and also works in radio, among other pursuits. She also published a book entitled Designated Fat Girl: A Memoir. Starting from morbidly obese at 330 pounds, her book cover …

Everybody wants to know: Is there anything that works to prevent childhood obesity? And if so, what is it? The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wonders, too, and not only in a general, curious way. The Foundation has a specific goal, to reverse the growi …

Most anti-childhood obesity programs, whether they are prevention-oriented or cure-oriented, have one thing in common: they need money. Whether the source of funds is the government, a foundation, or an eccentric millionaire with a mattress full of lar …

Because of concern about childhood obesity, a bill was introduced in Virginia that would require elementary and middle schools to offer 150 minutes of physical education per week. In her story about it, Rosalind S. Helderman included an extensive list …

What can help end the childhood obesity epidemic? That question includes a lot of other sub-questions. Two of them are “What can prevent kids from growing overweight in the first place?” and “What can help kids who are already overweight?” So when we a …

The online magazine Slate asked its readers for their best ideas about how to shrink childhood obesity. A dozen submissions were picked, reporter Christy Harrison tells us, half of them by the readers themselves. Six more were chosen by a panel of judg …

The Yale study “Neural Correlates of Food Addiction” has changed the landscape. Medical professionals and even regular people who were previously voices crying in the wilderness have been vindicated to a very great extent. And more of these regular peo …

(Part Two of a Two-Part Post — View Part One) The first part of this post had to do with the fact that the “healthy eating and exercise” approach for ending the childhood obesity epidemic just isn’t working. Compelling new evidence now points to actua …

I recently witnessed two teenagers in a group, one advising the other how to lose weight. The first teen glibly proclaimed, All you gotta do is eat healthy and exercise! Whereupon, the second teen indignantly retorted, That is sooo not it!!! I know wha …

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 caffe …

Childhood obesity, adult obesity, food addiction, processed food, chemicals, and corporations… all these things and more are inextricably entwined, and their relationship gives rise to many questions. Like, are they putting stuff in food to make it add …

A lot of creativity goes into persuasion, as in advertising and marketing fast foods, and a lot of originality goes into efforts to deal with the obesity epidemic. A great deal of creative energy is found in the projects of Public Matters, an organizat …

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 …

Addict Nation: An Intervention for America is a book which examines the country’s leading addictions. Not surprisingly, food addiction is #2. (The other most prevalent addictions are prescription pills, crime and punishment, shopping, and technology.) …

Relatively speaking, one of the disadvantages of food addiction is that obesity often follows. Plenty of alcoholics are able to hide their condition. People who are hooked on street drugs or prescription meds are often able to function in society witho …

Carnie Wilson’s dysfunctional relationship with her world-renowned musician father was, she feels, the root cause of her lifelong struggle with eating disorders. Then in 1993, her own singing group broke up. A couple of years later, Wilson admitted tha …

Sometimes, people pay attention to the oddest things. The obesity epidemic crept up with its associated signs and symptoms — for instance, a lot more cases of diabetes — but what really made headlines was when, for example, school officials noticed t …

Here is a very exciting development. Dr. Robert Pretlow’s “Addiction To Highly Pleasurable Food as a Cause of The Childhood Obesity Epidemic: A Qualitative Internet Study” will be published in the summer edition of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Trea …

This episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired a while back, but it’s a classic. Oprah invited some formerly obese teens, a couple of parents, and a couple of doctors — including Dr. Mehmet Oz, who hangs out in the audience contributing medical illumina …

We talked last time about the validation given by the recent Yale study, to the idea that food addiction is a reality for some people. Of course, the story was immediately picked up and expanded on by numerous other media, all with their own particular …

Well, better late than never! Dr. Robert A. Pretlow, numerous other medical professionals, and very many obese people (whose experiences were previously dismissed as “anecdotal evidence” and “non-validated data”) have been saying for years that food ad …

In “Weight Loss Surgery, Part 4,” we looked at the experiences of some grownups with bariatric surgery. But what about the kids? Is weight loss surgery (WLS) recommended for obese children and youth? Dr. Laurie Barclay discussed this for Medscape not l …

In part one last week, we basically outlined the different kinds of bariatric surgery. But do they work, and how well? Thanks to WebMD, any morbidly obese person who is considering such an operation can get a basic idea of what to expect. Adjustable ga …

We have speculated before on why highly pleasurable food gets such a hold on people that they let it impair their well-being, to the point where surgery is then necessary to control their overeating and restore health. We have suggested that any habit …