Robot doll Among those who are serious about shedding pounds, one of the standard joke targets is the person who eats a huge, calorie-laden meal accompanied by a diet soft drink. In the industry, corporate public-relations experts come up with justific …

According to a University of Virginia study, children who drink sugar-sweetened beverages “daily” rather than “often” are more likely to have a problem with obesity, and this applies even to five-year-olds. The study looked at 9,600 children, all born …

An enormous amount of resources of every kind have been spent in proving that sweetened soft drinks either are, or are not, largely responsible for the childhood obesity epidemic. Aside from paying out a fortune to fund studies, beverage corporations a …

Dr. Pretlow has identified boredom as a source of stress, saying, “Many of the kids in our studies have little clue how to devise non-planned activities. Boredom is a staggering problem in obese youth.” Boredom is a fertile ground for the growth of suc …

Fat-Loss-Web The distress of being obese must be dreadful. But it’s a form of distress that is familiar and known, while change is difficult and scary. One of the oldest clichés is, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” Dr. Pretlow has …

Britain’s National Obesity Observatory, in a paper on obesity and mental health, recommends focusing on psychological factors rather than on weight loss per se. Especially for the obese child, social support is the primary concern. As we have seen from …

“Acceptance” is a word that conjures up visions of maturity, tolerance, and compassion. On the most basic level, fat acceptance is necessary for everyone. An obese person has to learn to love her/himself in order to care enough to make positive physica …

If there is a category of childhood obesity survivor superstars, the personality known as “boogie2988” (YouTube) and “uberwolf0” (Reddit) surely belongs in it. His YouTube channel contains hundreds of short videos — character sketches, talks about ele …

Like many professional comedians, Marc Maron might be called an equal-opportunity offender. The laugh is more important than anybody’s feelings. When accused of insensitivity by a fan, Maron first reflected on how, culturally, “there seems to be a lice …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at the public outcry and media flurry that resulted from public service billboards in Tel Aviv, Israel, that were characterized by many as “fat-shaming.” Jewish Journal blogger Julie Bien offered a personal pers …

Most people who cause a media stir don’t wait for months to answer critics, but Maria Kang did. Last October she reacted to something that had happened a year before. Eight months after giving birth, Kang posted on Facebook a picture of herself with th …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News considered the stages of change identified by behavioral-change expert James Prochaska and his colleagues. They are not the only professionals who have identified such stages. A while back, we looked at the thoughts of …

Even when a person feels that she or he woke up one morning and suddenly was motivated to make a life change, and even if the narrative is told that way, it’s probably not quite accurate. More likely, increments of change had been percolating and accum …

When actor Tom Arnold was 4 years old, his alcoholic mother left the family. As he grew a bit older, she would occasionally visit and give Tom a dollar, which in the old days would buy 10 large candy bars. He would lay out the treats on his bed and tel …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at the latest significant report about childhood obesity, which found that, measured over a decade, American children between the ages of 2 and 5 years showed a 43% decline in obesity. That’s good news, but the …

When we see a story headlined “Childhood obesity down more than 40 percent, new study says” and then one headlined “Local Pediatrician Sees No Decline in Childhood Obesity” and still another that declares “No ‘Mission Accomplished’ In Childhood Obesity …

  Childhood Obesity News has been taking a closer look at what happened when two different groups of obese young people participated in trials of Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go smartphone application. Dr. Pretlow outlined the process in an earlier post,  …

Today, Childhood Obesity News recalls Dr. Pretlow’s January 2 post, “Obese Youth and Motivation,” which was written once the Australian study related to the W8Loss2Go smartphone app had been concluded. It was difficult for his team to understand why so …

The company that conducted a study of obese Mayo Clinic employees used to be called Gympact before the name was shortened to simply Pact. Their program is available online, where it is used by at least one adult Childhood Obesity News visitor, who endo …

Recently Childhood Obesity News talked about obesity’s ghost — the tendency of former fat kids to be haunted by the specter of their younger selves. They sometimes suffer from insecurity and heightened anxiety, and even from weird fears like going to …

Back in the old days before everyone carried some kind of visual recording device 24/7, people could re-invent themselves. Before the Internet, it was possible for a movie star to go through an entire career without anyone ever being able to locate a c …

For first-person childhood obesity experiences, nothing can beat the message boards at Dr. Pretlow’s Weigh2Rock  website. Nevertheless, Childhood Obesity News has been reaching out across the Web to find examples of weight-loss motivation in children. …

By 2008, fitness was catching on in China, and the country had well over 160,000 gyms with, in the words of Megan Shank, “spinning, yoga, step, salsa and even pole dancing — anything to entice office workers.” Depending on the usual factors that influ …

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 …

In China, as elsewhere in the developed world, there is a very strong correlation between people spending most of their time with a TV or computer and people whose bodies don’t fit into clothes or airplane seats. With kids, the situation is especially …

China’s solution to childhood obesity starts with a network of dangerously strict “fat camps,” backed up by a nationwide profusion of Internet-addiction rehab centers designed to extirpate habits that are seen as the main cause of overweight. Years ago …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News discussed a Chinese study linking obesity with Internet addiction. That country is very conscious of the strong correlation between too much screen time and excessive body weight, and takes very literally the idea of a …

Chinese scientists collected data on 1,150 middle school and high school students in the city of Xiangtan. Their report says: The height and body weight of human body were measured and the obesity state was judged according to BMI value and the Working …

Katie Couric has filled a lot of roles in front of the camera, including network news anchor and daytime talk show host. For an episode of Katie titled “Kids Who Have Battled Obesity and Won,” one of her guests was Keyanna Williams, a teenager who was …

Roberta Russell wrote a book called Are There No Cures which asked the question, “What Works in Psychotherapy When It Does Work?” Here is the answer she found: It is the feeling of alliance between the therapist and the patient, as perceived by the pat …