On a list of the the most abused foods in America sugar-sweetened beverages always score among the top entries. James Greenblatt, the chief medical officer of Walden Behavioral Care (treatment centers that concentrate on eating disorders), joins the ch …

This picture shows the “Holidays Are Coming” truck, which yearly visits more than 40 locations in the United Kingdom. Last year, 2015, saw more pushback than ever, including harsh words from Parliament member Keith Vaz who said: The Coca-Cola truck is …

Twenty-two thousand is a pretty decent-size subject pool for a study, but the result given by this one could have been arrived at through mere common sense. The University of Illinois found that… […] diet-beverage consumers may compensate for the a …

While not much progress has been made in preventing childhood obesity, it is known that early is better – early as in pre-conception, if possible. It is more than clear that the younger a child starts being overweight, the longer that child will probab …

The Teen-Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery, which is known as Teen-LABS for short, aims to document “the efficacy and complications of bariatric surgery in the adolescent surgical patient and its role in the overall management of obesity pri …

Is disease prevention a sufficient justification for performing surgery? Opponents of neonatal circumcision would say no; on the other hand, women with the genetic predisposition to breast cancer want the choice of bilateral mastectomy just in case. It …

Gastric sleeve-themed items by Etsy craftspersons A piece in GeneralSurgeryNews.com makes an excellent point – Although bariatric surgery is performed on unprecedented numbers of teenagers today, the number of procedures performed—and the availability …

Weight loss saves lives and reduces the likelihood of numerous co-morbidities. Alas, the effects rarely last. Without surgical intervention, it is said that “only 2% of severely obese teenagers can lose weight and keep it off.” So a case can be made th …

  For a time, a Chinese youngster named Lu Hao was one of the most photographed children in the world, because he was billed as the fattest boy in the world. In March of 2011, he was 3 years old and weighed 132 pounds, the equivalent of 5 normal-w …

In regard to the worldwide obesity epidemic, Dr. Pretlow has referred to the concatenation of events and influences as the “perfect storm,” a term borrowed from meteorology that refers to large-scale synergy. It is what happens when a number of element …

Analysis of data provided to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) by thousands of American children and teenagers revealed that on any given day, 22% of them eat pizza. Difficult as it may be to believe, this is actually an imp …

Childhood Obesity News has been exploring factors suspected of contributing to the obesity epidemic, including low income, a virus, a medical history that includes childhood cancer, odors, distraction, and too much variety. A recent study published in …

The human digestive tract has its own ecosystem inhabited by trillions of beings whose ability to influence our health appears stronger with every new study. In particular, the organisms inside the gut seem to wield uncanny power over the presence or a …

California’s Central Valley What if a single damaging environmental condition affected 40% of the world’s children? Would that explain the obesity epidemic that also affects such a large percentage of kids worldwide? Several studies have linked secondh …

These words are from Dr. Frederica Perera of Columbia University, a winner of the prestigious Heinz Award from the Heinz Family Foundation: Exposure to endocrine disruptors in the air can alter the normal hormonal signaling and affect growth and develo …

The introduction can be found in yesterday’s post, so let’s jump right into a pile of things that have been named as obesity villains. Childhood Obesity News neither endorses nor refutes these by listing them, but merely reports on the possibilities. B …

Early in 2011, the Food and Drug Administration obligingly began to allow the marketing of laparoscopic gastric banding surgery  to people who were not morbidly obese and whose lives were not immediately threatened by their weight. As the L.A. Times pu …

Yesterday, we started to examine a lengthy article by Debra Sherman, part of which concerned two bariatric surgeons who ran a clinic under the auspices of New York University, and another doctor who brought them unwelcome publicity. A reader might have …

By way of tracing the recent history of bariatric surgery as applied to teenagers, Childhood Obesity New looked at a comprehensive special report compiled by Debra Sherman for Reuters more than five years ago. It begins by recounting the ordeal of a co …

Over in the United Kingdom, Steve Miller is known for several activities. As a Weight Loss Master, he teaches mindset and motivation, and is a great believer in willpower as the impetus and fuel for weight loss. A person can buy a series of personal co …

It is a challenge to find a source that has a good word to say about the future of globesity. Mostly, the prognosis is grim and the predictions are dire. The World Obesity Federation predicts that by the year 2025, one billion of Earth’s grownups will …

Ms. Pat projects the opposite of approved corporate image. Comedian Ms. Pat talks about how the local kids participate in the time-honored mischief of ringing doorbells and running away. She tells her son to stay out of it because, being so fat that hi …

For anyone who hasn’t had enough Halloween lore in our recent compendia of past Halloween posts, there is plenty more where that came from. At this time of year the blogosphere, the zeitgeist, and the cultural milieu all seem to focus intensely on Hall …

It seems like every time you turn around, another bleak prediction appears. In 2014, The Lancet revealed that about 2.1 billion of the Earth’s inhabitants—about one-third of the entire population—were overweight. And of that number, about 670 million q …

WALL-E (released in 2008) won both critical and popular success, making good money and winning several important awards. It inspired the manufacture of action figures, a video game, and even a specialized Lego set. Although it is classified as a scienc …

When the Australian firm Canstar Blue surveyed parents about baby food and related topics, Simon Downes wrote up the results. Nearly 60 percent of Australian parents admit to having given fast food—such as can be found at McDonald’s and similar establi …

We live in the midst of a worldwide trend toward ever-increasing obesity. Imaginative observers have compared it to speculative fiction classics such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Orson Scott Card’s story of a planet where everyone suffers from …

On behalf of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, Joanne Ikeda made an unambiguous statement: The whole ‘war on obesity’ has focused a whole lot of attention on fat people and the general impression of the public is they can be shamed or …

The ungrammatically titled web page “Photos: 7 Women You Won’t Believe They Actually Exist” features a woman who is literally wider than she is tall. With a height of only 5’4”, Mikel Ruffinelli weighs 420 pounds and measures 8′ around the hips. This i …

Earlier this month, there was a big media flap when Canadian comedian Nicole Arbour posted a 6-minute video titled “Dear Fat People” on YouTube. People reacted by calling it all kinds of names including “most offensive video EVER,” and both YouTube and …