To recap: First, the Kellogg Company sells plenty of Honey Smacks, double chocolate S’mores Krave cereal, and Frosted Confetti Cake Pop-Tarts. Part of those profits go to the trust, along with a smaller sum gained from investing in other corporations t …

The idea of Kellogg as a sponsor is complicated because several different entities are involved. Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned the many programs backed by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In the 2013 fiscal year, the foundation gave away $259 …

When the journal Childhood Obesity started up, with financial sponsorship from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Fat Boy Thin Man author Michael Prager got in touch with the publisher and expressed concern about the dual role filled by the foundation’s vice …

From 2005 until June of 2010, a publication existed under the name Obesity and Weight Management. Starting in August of that year, its focus narrowed and its name changed. Childhood Obesity announced its intention to be the premier journal concerned wi …

A Kellogg’s Ice Cream Shoppe Frosted Rainbow Cookie Sandwich Pop-Tart The Kellogg Company has a split personality that is fascinating to people who care about and write about childhood obesity. Through its W.K. Kellogg Foundation, it funds researchers …

Last time, we left off with a quotation from spin doctor Jeff Nedelman, to the effect that “No one commissions research anticipating a negative response.” It would appear that when giant corporations pay for studies to show the harmlessness of their pr …

Coca-Cola and other comparable companies regularly inject their names into the news by sponsoring research projects, conferences, healthy-lifestyle initiatives, and similar rah-rah-get-healthy programs. All these efforts are designed to give the impres …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at the question of how much responsibility schools should bear for preventing childhood obesity. In one way, it seems almost intuitively obvious that, especially in the early years, school is the right place to t …

Preventing Childhood Obesity: Evidence Policy and Practice is a book with global perspective, drawing relevant information from contributors from many countries whose credentials take up pages and pages. One of the points it makes is the necessity to s …

Count Brickula Some beverage industry spokespeople insist that sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and artificially sweetened drinks are benign in their effects on the human body. Some of these mouthpieces even say there is no evidence to the contrary. Th …

  Believe it or not, there is still more to say about attacks against the sugar-sweetened beverage industry and all its kin, like artificially sweetened fizzy drinks and sports drinks; and more to know about the rebuttals they have offered in thei …

At the American Heart Association’s 2013 annual meeting, a Harvard postdoctoral research fellow named Gitanjali Singh presented some ideas that generated headlines and controversy. The topic was the public health hazard posed by soda pop in all its for …

Republished in a forum, this article originally came from the British newspaper The Times, and its title is “Sugar watchdog works for Coca-Cola.” In the past, the U.K. government had assigned scientists to determine how much of a person’s total energy …

Once the 2012 Olympics in London had ended, activists started trying to ensure that the next time would be different. In Britain, some of the entities calling for the end of junk food sponsorship of sporting events are the Academy of Medical Royal Coll …

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 …