Moy (short for Moyses) is one of the four young subjects of Bite Size, a very engaging movie that lets the kids and the grownups all speak their own truths. (Childhood Obesity News  has already looked at Emily’s story, and will look at the other two in …

Everyone eats breakfast every day, at least in the literal sense. The first meal, no matter what time it is consumed, breaks the fast, or period of abstention from eating that includes sleep. But conventionally, breakfast takes place in the morning, wh …

On this page is a link to a free chart that spells out the differences between physical (real) hunger and emotional (bogus) hunger. A book* called Constant Craving, by Doreen Virtue, introduced the chart with these words: Emotional and physical hunger …

As Dr. Pretlow has observed, it can be difficult to get young people to express their thoughts and feelings about their own obesity.  For this reason, the relationship between weight and quality of life in adolescents is a topic somewhat shrouded in my …

The day that follows a big holiday blowout is perfect for good intentions, and most of us formulate resolutions with ease. We decide to take the high road, to do everything right from here on out. But how? The advice for the day after Thanksgiving is t …

A few days from now, many Americans will face an annual celebratory gathering of family and/or friends that should be pure pleasure. Instead, Thanksgiving too often provides traumatic difficulties for anyone who wants to exercise sovereignty over subst …

Mother and child in Mongolia Earlier this year, the United Kingdom’s Overseas Development Institute determined that “The number of overweight and obese adults in the developing world has almost quadrupled to around one billion since 1980.” According to …

On many occasions Dr. Pretlow has been called upon by young students completing school assignments. The most recent was 13-year-old Heidi Zahnleuter who turned in a paper on childhood obesity that looked into such matters as whether watching TV or inte …

The September issue of Contemporary Pediatrics rounded up the opinions of several experts on the question of how to make a difference in reducing the alarming rate of childhood obesity. The author, Lisette Hilton, found that they agree on one thing: te …

For MedPage Today, Todd Neale wrote about an Australian study of active video games, which concluded that: Removing all video games from the home or replacing traditional video games with active video games both resulted in small improvements in physic …

“Mastication or Castigation” was the title of a previous Childhood Obesity News piece introducing Horace Fletcher, and soon, after some remarks about his significance, we will bid him farewell. There was more to his philosophy than just the idea that f …

To recapitulate: American historical figure Horace Fletcher preached the chewing of food into a state of liquefaction, as an aid to digestion and general well-being. Though he was for a time discredited, recent science has shown that there are indeed n …

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 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 …

It’s very tempting to blame parents, and especially mothers, for the childhood obesity epidemic. This is nearly inevitable because, as Lisen Stromberg admits, the mom is usually the “food and exercise gate-keeper” of the family. In most households, the …

It used to be fat was thought of as pretty much inert. Then scientific research brought about an “Everything you know is wrong” moment, and fat was declared to be a metabolically active organ. As Deepak Chopra puts it: Fat tissue produces literally doz …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at how Tim Carman constructed an article around the gimmick of imagining the far-out funny stuff that could happen if the McDonald’s corporation were allowed to do anything it wanted at the most recent Olympics. …

Every now and then, it’s necessary to check the fast-food front and see what the big boys have been up to. For instance, McDonald’s got some publicity when a man made news by restricting his diet to McDonald’s fare during his monthlong training period …

In desperation, people have come up with all kinds of ideas to end childhood obesity. One alarming headline went like this: Use law enforcement to get people to change eating habits, says UCLA panel… Yikes! That point of view is far from mainstream, …

Even the most conscientious and well-meaning parent can feel like the fictional Alice going down the rabbit hole, when confronted with the plethora of advice intended to help kids avoid obesity. For instance, we all know that vegetables are good, but w …

Last week the American Medical Association (AMA) voted to call obesity a disease, which is basically a medical condition requiring treatment. In the most simple terms, they’re saying that 12 million American kids need to go to the doctor. According to …

Richard French, DVM, M.S., Ph.D., of Becker College (where he is a veterinary pathologist and Dean of Animal Studies) is very concerned about obesity among pets. There is a lot of it. American households contain 77 million dogs, of which 53% of the adu …

In America, for better or worse, we watch celebrities. The examples they set might be positive or negative, uplifting or discouraging. To be fair, celebrities are between a rock and a hard place. In the arts and in show business, if a high-profile pers …

In a study of more than 1,000 young users of the social network platform Facebook, researchers found that (in the demographic being studied) the opinion of a “strongly tied” friend means more than the opinion of a “weak tie.” A lot of people might be i …

Childhood Obesity News has been exploring the many advantages and benefits of networking with social media. But rarely is a blessing unalloyed in this world. The whole social media revolution arrived with its own set of ready-made problems, though not …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at some recent developments in the media coverage of obesity and related topics. Last summer, as described by reporter Kirsty McCormack, the “pro-anorexia website” called SkinnyGossip apparently targeted a 20-ye …

Childhood Obesity News has been examining the influence of friends on childhood obesity. The concept that social networks impact individual behavior is not exactly hot off the presses. That’s why, for instance, the Eating Disorder Referral and Informat …

Surveys of the habits of American youth between the ages of 13 and 17 find that half of them use social media on a daily basis. The American Heart Association (AHA), in a statement that was published in the January issue of its journal, Circulation, re …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned a study carried out by a team headed by Dr. J.S. Li, in part because: Results from trials of Internet-based weight management programs have shown mixed results. These have not specifically used social network …

Pop singer Lady Gaga has millions of adoring followers among the tweens and teens of the world. Lately, more mature observers have had cause to puzzle over her message. At an MTV award show, she wore an outfit made of sewn-together slabs of steak, acce …