This site is dedicated to exploring the physical, social, emotional, and political issues surrounding childhood obesity. We invite you to explore some of our most popular — and controversial — posts and series. Here are a few examples: Why is childho …

Dr. Pretlow was one of the professionals interviewed on camera by Sabrina Register, of television station KCTS in Seattle, on the subject of childhood obesity.  The show mentions his W8Loss2Go smartphone app, and visits his very popular Weigh2Rock webs …

In the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel,” a child is captured by a witch who feeds him so he will be nice and plump to cook and eat. The story has analogs in many cultures. The website TV Tropes gives more than 30 examples of stories (including a Simpsons …

Here is the confluence of two trains of thought. The first concerns the omission of food addiction from the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The other is the quality of life experienced by an obese child – not a …

Hector Garcia called himself “the worst-case scenario” for reasons clear to anyone familiar with the thorough and revelatory account of his last four years on earth, as compiled by San Antonio Express-News staffers Jessica Belasco and Lisa Krantz. Garc …

Once they have become obese, children may experience a diminished quality of life for many reasons, some of which are more obvious than others. A lot of things in the material world are too small for their comfort — clothes, school desks, airplane seat …

When 600-pound Hector Garcia died in December, his life had been documented for several years by a team from the San Antonio Express-News. His mother told the reporter that “if she tried to refuse his requests for food, her son would get angry.” Dr. Pr …

From the moment any child is born, the main factor determining that child’s quality of life is the chief caregiver, often the mother. When this works out well, everybody wins. But the planet is full of less-than-perfect parents. Sometimes governments a …

Sunset in San Antonio Reporter Jessica Belasco and photographer Lisa Krantz spent four years documenting the life of a morbidly obese man for the San Antonio Express-News. Last month, the task culminated in a lavishly-illustrated story after Hector Gar …

People who get hooked on nicotine, alcohol, and street drugs all have something in common: they are also likely to be addicted to food. As food addiction expert Phil Werdell says: They often come to Overeaters Anonymous or one of the other food–related …

A baby is helpless, a child is powerless, yet somehow these little creatures become obese. Are they doing it to themselves? No. The earlier obesity sets in, the harder it is to reverse, so fat toddlers become fat grade school kids, and then fat middle …

Yesterday was Skip Sugar Day, at least in Greenwich, Conn., where city leaders proclaimed the event. Maybe next year it will be national. Meanwhile in that city, HALSAmd Research, whose mission is to address, educate, and coordinate medical treatment a …

What exactly is this BMI we hear so much about? A definition proffered by MedifastArizona.com goes like this: Obesity is defined as an excessive amount of body fat in relation to lean body mass. This is generally calculated by physicians as body mass i …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News considered why kids might lack motivation to take part in a free program that could help them achieve healthy weight; or why, once enrolled in such a program, they might drag their feet and hold back from full particip …

Here is a peek into the process of setting up the trials of Dr. Pretlow’s smartphone app, as he describes it: Recruiting and engaging youth for our two W8Loss2Go app pilot studies has been extremely challenging. We offered $50 per month compensation, a …

The question of motivation, or lack of it, is endlessly provocative. A while back there was a media kerfuffle when a man thought he could motivate a Wisconsin TV news reader to lose weight by offering his critique of her ample figure. It bothered him e …

In the latest trial of Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go smartphone app, the buddy feature turned out not to be one of the most popular tools. Perhaps its true potential was not fully explored by the participants, who had many other things on their minds. The ne …

A child is obese who can’t lift herself or himself off the ground, even with a jumping assist. So says coach and physical educator Rick Osbourne, who proposes a straightforward strategy that is said to motivate kids to “naturally immunize themselves ag …

Research projects like the Millennium Cohort Study have found that for obese children, both emotional and behavioral problems start early. Especially for boys, life is an endless round of physical and psychological discomforts. Quality of life is affec …

Halloween kicks off eating season, the first of a series of occasions where food is the signifier of love, togetherness, hospitality, generosity, and regret. Anyone who gains from 7 to 10 pounds over the winter holiday season is normal, and a dismaying …

What? We’re talking about Halloween and it’s only October 1st? Exactly! The manufacturers and retailers are ready, no doubt about that, with those industrial-size packages of candy already on display. Parents need to be ready too. Here is an interestin …

Mother and child in Mongolia Earlier this year, the United Kingdom’s Overseas Development Institute determined that “The number of overweight and obese adults in the developing world has almost quadrupled to around one billion since 1980.” According to …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News explored the idea of passive enabling, which can mean many things, such as letting obesogenic conditions continue without interference. Parents are called upon to be agents of change, but if they are not even aware of …

In the previous post, Childhood Obesity News considered the difference between active and passive enabling. During Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, it becomes clear that for a parent to be unaware is a kind of passive enabling. The goal is to bring p …

Much of our current understanding of the childhood obesity crisis comes from highly respected institutions. To pick a random example, after research was done at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, the authors made suggestion …

In the Netherlands, only 4% of the children are overweight, according to NBC News. Apparently the source is the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, although a visit to their data visualization page seems to indicate that the percentage is 17.2 …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at developments in the United Kingdom, and today we take a peek at what has been going on with one of England’s neighbors and two of its former colonies. In Ireland, there are 300-pound teenagers and growing con …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News talked about obesity around the world. Dr. Pretlow once said: Poor lifestyle choices is commonly touted as the reason for the obesity epidemic. Yet, obesity is rapidly becoming a worldwide epidemic as countries adopt a …

Poor Atlas, that mythological figure who must carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Since 1980, he has noticed it getting heavier. There are now four times as many overweight and obese adults as in 1980, according to the Future Diets report i …

A report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences gave the disturbing news that obesity rates continue to link up with income inequality. A Harvard research team found that obesity is decreasing in teenagers from well-educated (and …