In Britain they have a thing called the National Obesity Observatory (NOO) through which the government publishes the results of research concerning overweight and obesity. To gather information, the NOO operates the National Child Measurement Programm …

As yesterday’s Childhood Obesity News post noted, quality of life has been a subject of concern for quite a long time in the study of youth obesity. Sometimes, in the midst of all the journal articles and lab results and optimistically designed program …

A little over 10 years ago, research was done on the quality of life experienced by children in various life situations. The starting point was a prior study that had compared the quality of life experienced by young cancer patients with children who s …

Childhood Obesity News has been following the development course of Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go smartphone app, whose approach is based on the addiction-treatment model of withdrawal and abstinence from problem foods and large food amounts. In 2011, this p …

For the Washington Post, Marlene Cimons reported on recent studies concerning adenovirus 36, which causes increased fat and weight in various animals including mice, rats, monkeys and chickens. In humans, adenovirus 36 causes upper respiratory infectio …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at the possibility that Russia might be winning the War on Obesity, because of the widespread prevalence of small garden plots where people grow a large proportion of the nation’s food supply. New readers are in …

“War on childhood obesity” is a phrase that has been bandied about in the media for some time now. One example is a short interview that Fox Business recorded with Jake Steinfeld, chairman of the National Foundation for Governors’ Fitness Councils. Wha …

“Waiting for the tipping point” — what does that mean? According to Jacques Peretti, host of the third episode in the BBC TV series The Men Who Made Us Fat, it means that eventually the British government will realize that it is paying out more for th …

David Wallerstein worked in a movie theater, where he pioneered the concepts of the giant popcorn tub and the enormous waxed tumbler of soda pop. In Episode 2 of BBC Two’s The Men Who Made Us Fat, Jacques Peretti conveys the astonishing news that McDon …

The British Broadcasting Company made a three-part series titled The Men Who Made Us Fat, featuring Jacques Peretti, and this is about Part 1. Peretti talks about how there was a revolution in eating habits, but not the good kind of revolution. He talk …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News talked about morbid or severe obesity. Another important term is “co-morbidity.” In the realm of obesity, co-morbidities can include the well-known insulin resistance syndrome (or metabolic syndrome), Type 2 diabetes a …

The descriptive phrase “morbid obesity” seems to have been replaced by “severe obesity,” which doesn’t sound quite as deadly. The association is useful, because when a person embarks on the journey into “morbidly obese” territory, she or he will probab …

Mens sana in corpore sano — that’s Latin for “a healthy mind in a healthy body,” and to make it through the holidays, you need both. For the healthy body, getting enough sleep is paramount. Focus on such concepts as trip consolidation and creative ch …

In a Forbes article a few weeks back, Kate Harrison made a cogent point: “Halloween is our annual free-for-all, but what starts as a one-night binge can quickly stretch out into months of sugar overload.” For a lot of Americans, it’s all too true. Even …

One thing that humans do is, we fool ourselves into thinking that after some arbitrary and magical date — January 1, for instance — everything will change and we will do things differently. As parents, we convince ourselves to believe that after the …

Culturally sensitive disclaimer: Whenever the word “Christmas” occurs here, please feel free to mentally substitute any holiday of your choice — because this is exactly the point. Cultures and religions have their festive holidays, the times for gathe …

In November, Dr. Tom O’Bryan of theDr.com gathered 29 researchers, clinicians and nutritionists to pool their intellectual and experiential resources for a Gluten Summit. Rye and barley also contain the protein they deem toxic, but wheat is by far the …

What’s so bad about gluten? Well, nothing, according to mainstream medicine and Dr. Pretlow. The idea that gluten has particularly harmful qualities is not universally accepted. The majority opinion is that obesity results from eating too much food, i. …

In the science of forensics, transfer theory holds that a criminal will always leave trace evidence at the crime scene. A person with celiac disease has to be as suspicious and hyper-vigilant as a detective dusting for fingerprints. If the grocery stor …

In 2011, William Davis, M.D., published the book Wheat Belly, whose message is that “over-consumption of wheat is the main cause of the obesity and diabetes crisis in the United States.” Some of his medical peers are uncomfortable with assigning so muc …

As we have seen, one school of thought holds that gluten is addictive. A lot of foodstuffs (as well as myriad other products) contain gluten, and gluten critics say the substance is what causes so many people to be addicted to certain foods. Any doubt …

The best way to avoid foods that are bad for you is to stay away from foods with health claims on the label. They are usually hiding something bad. What a powerful quotation! These are the words of Dr. Mark Hyman, who, like Dr. Pretlow, has written and …

As a childhood obesity villain, gluten is one of the “usual suspects” and Childhood Obesity News has looked at the case against it before. InsuliteLabs.com takes an especially dim view of gluten: As many as 75% of overweight and obese people in the U.S …

One thing to keep in mind, always, is that children are different from grownups. They do go through what used to be called “phases” and are apt to try out and then quickly discard behaviors as part of their natural development. Another thing to remembe …

Although obesity is the second most widespread cause of preventable death in the United States, many people still disagree over the American Medical Association’s June decision to classify obesity as a disease. Licensed mental health counselor William …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News discussed a Contemporary Pediatrics article in which Dr. Pretlow was generously quoted. The substantial piece, by Lisette Hilton, went on to examine an aspect of treatment that’s not often mentioned — the difficulty d …

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 …

As Childhood Obesity News has been discussing, the city-state of Singapore is quite serious about lowering its childhood obesity rate, and is pursuing that goal with a two-pronged strategy. One prong is more physical fitness for all citizens — regardl …

KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore identifies the primary causes of childhood obesity as environmental: An abundance of food allows for excessive intake of food from all food groups, especially fats. A diet high in fat is associated with i …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at some of the programs implemented by the government of Singapore over the past few years to prevent childhood obesity. We also got a glimpse of the future plan slated to begin in the new year, a physical educa …