Parenting in the Early Years, Part 3

October 3, 2013
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Stanford University is backing a concept called the DOR program, which stands for “division of responsibility.” A research team, led by Dr. W. Stewart Agras, started with a total of 62 families in which at least one parent was obese or overweight, and …

Parenting in the Early Years, Continued

October 2, 2013
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Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at the child feeding precepts of Dr. Susan Rubin, the holistic nutritionist whose philosophy derives from traditional Chinese medicine. Proceed slowly with a baby, introducing new foods one at a time and watchin …

Parenting in the Early Years

October 1, 2013
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Dr. Susan Rubin is a holistic nutritionist and health counselor who believes that the things a child eats make a difference in lifelong health, beginning with the very first foods. Much of her philosophy comes from ancient Chinese medicine, which trace …

What’s a Parent to Do In the Early Years?

September 30, 2013
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At every possible opportunity, the American Beverage Association will circulate public relations messages that go something like this: Overweight and obesity are caused by an imbalance between calories consumed from all foods and beverages (total diet) …

Globesity Spotlight: Mexico

September 27, 2013
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In July, it was announced that the fattest nation title is no longer held by the United States but has passed to Mexico. Of the adults, almost 70% are overweight and 32.8% qualify as obese. One out of three teenagers is obese, and the amount of childho …

The State of Globesity, Part 2

September 26, 2013
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There are an estimated 1.4 billion overweight people in the world, of whom 500 million are obese. Typical of the actions performed by the World Health Organization (WHO) is a visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, for a three-day workshop, described by the WHO …

Weight-Loss Pills in the United Kingdom

September 25, 2013
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Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned Great Britain’s childhood obesity situation. The healthcare market research company MackSense sells a report (for only $3,550) on the current state of obesity in the United Kingdom. Despite the cost of the do …

The State of Globesity

September 24, 2013
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It’s still Childhood Obesity Awareness Month in America, but that doesn’t mean childhood obesity has ceased in the rest of the world. Not by a long shot! Last month, Chris Weller reported that the U.S. and Great Britain are about even, with childhood o …

Undoing the BFRB Strand, Part 2

September 23, 2013
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As of September 1, columnist Morton Downey had counted 98 possible causes for obesity. Childhood Obesity News has been exploring the idea that, since many different factors contribute to the obesity epidemic, one of them might be BFRBs, or Body Focused …

Undoing the BFRB Strand

September 20, 2013
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Childhood Obesity News has been looking at the possible relationship between two phenomena — compulsive eating and body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) — sometimes known as displacement behaviors. The person subjected to BFRB will develop a beha …

BFRBs — A Strand of the Childhood Obesity Tangle? (Part 2)

September 19, 2013
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Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News quoted from the Visions Adolescent Treatment Centers, describing some of the characteristics of Body-Focused Repetitive Behavior (BFRB), a condition which is said to affect millions of people. The purpose is to explore …

BFRBs — A Strand of the Childhood Obesity Tangle?

September 18, 2013
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Previously, Childhood Obesity News talked about what Dr. Pretlow terms the childhood obesity perfect storm, the collection of factors present in our society that combine in endlessly fascinating ways to keep the obesity epidemic going. Like a mythologi …

Strands of the Childhood Obesity Tangle

September 17, 2013
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Both the human psyche and the meat vehicle that carries it around are fully prepared to acknowledge chocolate fudge as a reward equal to cocaine. The same lights flash and, metaphorically speaking, the same bells ring. Any substance that sets off the f …

Childhood Obesity in Taiwan

September 16, 2013
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The first thing to know is that “ED” stands for Emotional Disturbances, and the second thing is that there is a standardized test called the SAED, which stands for Scale for Assessing Emotional Disturbance. Researchers from Australia’s Monash Universit …

Childhood Obesity and Technology

September 12, 2013
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The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases recently invented a mathematical model of energy balance as it relates to the development of childhood obesity. It accounts for changes is body weight caused by the consumption of cal …

How Is Childhood Obesity Doing? (Part 4)

September 10, 2013
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We’re still in Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, and have been looking at the spectrum of news coverage over the past few months, which although it has not exactly inspired roller-coaster emotions, has tended to fluctuate. In the wake of the CDC repor …

How Is Childhood Obesity Doing? (Part 3)

September 9, 2013
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Okay, so it’s been established that at the beginning of the year, the Centers for Disease Control study was a major big deal. Writer Lori Abbot focused on the comparison between New York City and Los Angeles, America’s two gigantic opposite-coastal met …

How Is Childhood Obesity Doing?

September 5, 2013
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Well, it’s September, and Childhood Obesity Awareness Month is back. What better way to observe this awareness month than to look at what is being said about the advance or retreat of the childhood obesity epidemic? Around the beginning of this year, i …

Do Obesity-Abatement Ads Promote Stigma? (Part 2)

September 4, 2013
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Recently, Childhood Obesity News talked about the videos made by Rebecca Puhl, Ph.D., and associates, on behalf Yale University’s Rudd Center, where Dr. Puhl is Director of Research and Weight Stigma Initiatives. They also produced “Weight Bias at Home …

Childhood Obesity and Self-Efficacy

September 3, 2013
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Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at a video from Yale University’s Rudd Center, one of the world’s obesity-fighting focal points. This and similar works that educate painlessly will help America get over the idea that stigmatization is somehow …

Do Obesity-Abatement Ads Promote Stigma?

August 30, 2013
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The Yale Rudd Center has made a series of videos about weight bias, and the nature and extent of this prejudice. At its mildest, weight bias can be described as a negative attitude toward obese people. It’s a form of stereotyping whose expression can b …

The Childhood Obesity Talk, Part 4

August 29, 2013
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America is not the only place where health professionals in many different jurisdictions are trying to figure out what to do about the impending obesity of children they have charge of. School districts struggle with the questions of whether to send ou …

The Childhood Obesity Talk, Part 3

August 28, 2013
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Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News continued looking at various aspects of “The Talk” — the one that parents sometimes need to have with their kids, about maintaining a healthy weight — and the concept of “fat letters” sent home by schools that are co …

The Childhood Obesity Talk, Part 2

August 27, 2013
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Reporter Helena Oliviero says: Talking to kids about weight can be difficult for parents. In fact, nearly one in four parents is uncomfortable talking about weight with his or her kids, according to a 2011 survey sponsored by WebMD and Sanford Health. …

The Childhood Obesity Talk

August 26, 2013
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When journalist Helena Oliviero wondered how parents communicate with their children about weight issues, she very sensibly personalized the topic by interviewing someone who would know. This was a mother, Virginia Smith, who had previously had initiat …

Childhood Obesity and Portion Control

August 23, 2013
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Childhood Obesity News salutes the launch of an 18-week trial study of Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone app, in collaboration with three institutions in Alelaide, Australia — Flinders University, Flinders Medical Centre, and the Child and Adolescent Men …

Support System for Childhood Obesity Struggle

August 22, 2013
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In Australia, Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone app is the subject of an 18-week study, with the collaboration of researchers from Flinders University, Medical Centre, and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). As we mentioned, bariatric …

W8Loss2Go Study in Adelaide, Australia

August 21, 2013
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Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News introduced Ellen Burne, a bariatric surgery patient who indicated that a program like Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone application would have been a good thing for her younger self to have access to. (In the picture on o …

In the Media: W8Loss2Go

August 20, 2013
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Readers of Childhood Obesity News will recognize Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone app on the device held by the radiant young woman. Now, it’s showing up in a new place, on the cover of Southern Health News magazine, published by Australia’s Southern Ade …

Childhood Obesity — a Point for the Crackpots

August 19, 2013
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Relative to this news item, here is part of a letter from an anonymous reader of Childhood Obesity News: I heard that giving a baby solid food too soon could cause lifelong problems with digestion, and intended to keep my daughter on a bottle for a few …

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Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Obesity top bottom

The Book

OVERWEIGHT: What Kids Say explores the obesity problem from the often-overlooked perspective of children struggling with being overweight.

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Dr. Robert A. Pretlow is a pediatrician and childhood obesity specialist. He has been researching and spreading awareness on the childhood obesity epidemic in the US for more than a decade.
You can contact Dr. Pretlow at:

Presentations

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the American Society of Animal Science 2020 Conference
What’s Causing Obesity in Companion Animals and What Can We Do About It

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the World Obesity Federation 2019 Conference:
Food/Eating Addiction and the Displacement Mechanism

Dr. Pretlow’s Multi-Center Clinical Trial Kick-off Speech 2018:
Obesity: Tackling the Root Cause

Dr. Pretlow’s 2017 Workshop on
Treatment of Obesity Using the Addiction Model

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation for
TEC and UNC 2016

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the 2015 Obesity Summit in London, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s invited keynote at the 2014 European Childhood Obesity Group Congress in Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2013 European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2011 International Conference on Childhood Obesity in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2010 Uniting Against Childhood Obesity Conference in Houston, TX.

Food & Health Resources