Statistics show that children in homes without fathers face higher risks of child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, and childhood obesity.

Epigenetic markers reveal that dads and their eating patterns can have previously unexpected effects on babies, even before conception.

Compulsive overeating appears to be at least as much a behavioral addiction as a substance addiction. This post revisits the subject of food cravings.

This is the fourth Childhood Obesity News post collecting some of the highlights of all the posts about food cravings and the research behind the theories.

Where do cravings come from and how can they be quelled? Among the overweight and obese, this knowledge is valued far above nutrition facts.

Coca-Cola seems to blame the consumers for their obesity, heart problems and diabetes, expecting us to offset the damage from consuming sugary drinks ourselves.

One problem with the culture’s insistence on fat-shaming is that it encourages a certain type of man to feel entitled to judge every female figure in sight.

Studies show that certain factors like the FTO and microbiome influence us in ways we cannot do anything about, and no amount of fat-shaming would change that.

Newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue rolled back some Obama-era school lunch rules, but every story has two sides.

The USDA recently acquired a new Big Boss, Sonny Perdue, who once ran a fertilizer business and then spent several years as governor of Georgia.

The kids who are drinking even one sugar-sweetened beverage per week are more than twice as likely already to be obese by the time they start kindergarten.

Drinking, throughout the day, anything but water is a subset of grazing. Excessive eating or drinking is as much an addiction as snorting cocaine or gambling.

Let’s continue to slog through the complicated history of the United Kingdom’s effort to quell obesity.

The most recent food-related “scandals” involved the research being funded by the food industry, mislabeled olive oil, shady marketing practices, and more.

We don’t hear much about Pokemon GO anymore. Did people simply stop wanting to play? Did it have anything to do with the health benefits or lack thereof?

How are kids supposed to know there is something better to reach for? It’s even harder without ever having been introduced to positive feelings.

What causes type 1 diabetes mellitus, or T1DM? There can be a genetic predisposition to it, but other things are going on too.

Exotic varieties of shame grow around the topic of obesity, from Facebook’s now-abandoned “I’m feeling fat” status update to Nicole Arbour’s YouTube diatribes.

We continue discussing the Nutrition Coalition, an influence group financed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and dietary guidelines.

We can influence the impact of DNA methylation by avoiding sugar and stress, and by getting enough quality sleep, among other things.

A lot of people certainly want fat-shaming to be effective, and, sadly, many of them are parents. There are too many instances where parents damage a child because their own self-esteem and reputation are at stake. They don’t want the world to look dow …

From the classic examples of media fat-shaming in the movies to the cliched iconography of obesity, obesity is often portrayed with a strong anti-fat bias.

As it turns out, food addiction appears to be not so much a substance addiction as was previously thought. It’s more about sensation than chemistry. Or is it?

When a person’s coping mechanism is a body-focused repetitive behavior, like shoveling in spoonfuls of sugary cereal, this qualifies as self-sabotage.

Is Nutrition Coalition’s campaign “dangerous and harmful” — as some critics claim? The saga of the revision of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans continues.

Today we consider an example of the type of resistance the Center for Digital Democracy and other advocacy groups have been up against.

Obesity can be a “legacy” passed on to succeeding generations, not only for genetic reasons but for epigenetic ones.

When people eat real food, and eliminate toxins and stress, less damage occurs and sometimes things happen that seem miraculous.

Science is catching up with the threat posed by sugar, consumers are getting smarter, and the burden of cost to treat obesity-related disease is increasing.

Is overeating a substance addiction? A mass of evidence points to overeating as a behavioral addiction.