The recent Consumer Reports National Research Center surveyed about 1,300 psychologists about the relationship between weight loss and emotions. Apparently, only 306 of them offer weight loss treatment per se, so their answers may count for more. Out o …

Children need vitamin D for their bones. The lack of it can make them get rickets, a condition not seen much in the United States, although it is said to be increasing. Vitamin D is also necessary for protection against other problems like decaying tee …

Because so many of the indicators and risk factors of childhood obesity overlap with matters of ethnicity and poverty (which is disproportionately linked to ethnicity), it is not surprising that civil rights organizations have taken an interest in chil …

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) takes an interest in childhood obesity, as it does in any societal problem that affects its members and constituents, and indeed that affects any minority groups. Its webpage says: …

Mark Bittman, a professional journalist who cooks (or perhaps a cook who writes) is only one of the many nutrition-oriented thought leaders who were themselves influenced by Robert H. Lustig, M.D. They are highly critical of all forms of sugar, and esp …

One of the problems with the whole sugar debate is the amazing amount of time, energy, and money that has been spent and will continue to be spent to answer such questions as, “Which is worse, traditional cane and beet sugar, or high fructose corn syru …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News was looking at the sugar’s checkered past, in historical terms, and the current damage to taxpayers when a commodity so much in demand and so cheap to produce can still collect farm subsidies, or what some call “corpor …

Gary Taubes is an independent investigator in health policy associated with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In a New York Times article, he resurrected the memory of John Yudkin, a British professor of nutrition and dietetics who spent the 1960s ex …

How many people have made a serious effort to quit sugar for a month? How many have succeeded? It has been said that trying to quit sugar for a month will make a skeptic into a food-addiction believer. That is, if the person gets through the preliminar …

New areas of research are opening up every day. Some interesting recent discoveries have been that mice with impaired cannabinoid receptors don’t like to exercise, and that some humans who use cannabis do like to exercise very much. And, surprisingly, …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News was talking about the CB1 and other cannabinoid receptors found in the brains of people and mice. The terminology is confusing, because these receptors get a lot of their input from bodily processes that don’t involve …

Every year ends the same way. Journalists look back over the preceding 12 months and make arbitrary lists — the 10 top food stories, the 5 most promising discoveries, and so on. They weigh and assess, and pick the biggest health story of the year, or …

Here is a first-person account by a not-obese woman, of an encounter at a party: The high tables were pushed together into long strips, with barstool seating along both sides. I talked a bit with the woman next to me, and then she asked if I would mind …

Childhood Obesity News has reviewed high fructose corn syrup before, and found the track record of HFCS to be unimpressive. Or too impressive, but not in a good way. A year ago we quoted early worrier Sara Novak, whose words are an example of how yeste …

Recently, Childhood Obesity News discussed the rules made by airlines to accommodate obese passengers (or not). The rules are not uniform, and about all they agree on is the politically correct term, “passenger of size.” In exactly what way is an obese …

Childhood Obesity News has been considering the distressing story of Vilma Soltesz, who died in Hungary recently because three airlines refused to let her travel on their planes, and then she got too sick to travel back to the United States. This story …

We see some things so often, we just take them for granted, and get used to them. It never occurs to us to step back and say, “Wait… What?” One of those freakish sociological quirks is the overwhelming and ubiquitous obsession with the bodies of famo …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News began tracing the history of the singer Beyoncé as it relates to the issue of childhood obesity. Beyoncé, whose weight seems to fluctuate as much as that of her fellow celebrity Oprah Winfrey, was recruited by First La …

Consider the strange case of Beyoncé, who seems to be working both sides of the street in the childhood obesity neighborhood. Early in 2011, the world learned that the singing star, following in the footsteps of other celebrities like Jamie Oliver and …

Really? For the holidays, are we going to talk about a bummer like addiction? Yes, indeed, because at this time of year, addictions that might have lain dormant for a while have a tendency to bloom. It’s a rough season for many people and for a lot of …

Jennifer Walker is an actor, photographer, and writer of lively posts online. Walker realized that she was addicted to sugar, and partway into a monthlong sugar fast, reflected on the mind-body connection: From what I’ve read, I need to find something …

Food can be addictive, and especially sugar. Over the years, many brave medical professionals fought the tide of prevailing opinion and asserted the addictiveness of food, especially sugar. And their number has been growing over the years. Childhood Ob …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News caught up with the continuing influence of the archetype of celebrity weight fluctuation, Oprah Winfrey. Erika Nicole Kendall, author of A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss, remarked on an episode of Oprah’s show about …

In one of the most attention-getting books on food and nutrition to have been published in the last decade, The End of Overeating, Dr. David Kessler puts forth the idea that even though the individual ingredients in food might not be overwhelmingly att …

The EarlyBird Diabetes Study, even though technically still in progress, has already reported on a number of interesting findings, and different people have gotten interested in different aspects. When attempting to predict whether a baby is at risk fo …

Defending a corporation is a bit like showing “sympathy for the devil,” as the Rolling Stones song phrased it. But just for the sake of discussion, let’s pretend that maybe even an international business conglomerate might not be wrong all the time. Be …

Not long ago, Charlotte Green observed: We don’t often ask ourselves when we watch shows like ‘Here Comes Honey Boo Boo’ if the kinds of eating habits that Mama is giving Honey Boo Boo at such a young age could be considered abuse. And indeed, a brief …

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

Childhood Obesity News has looked at some of the “Key Findings from EarlyBird,” many of which are unexpected, counter-intuitive, and/or controversial. Some of the underlying premises of the whole Let’s Move! program are challenged by the EarlyBird obse …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News mentioned the upcoming documentary film (scheduled for release in June 2013) which Dr. Pretlow will appear in, titled Sweet Nothing: America’s Addiction to Sugar. These are by no means the only voices raised against su …