When journalist Helena Oliviero wondered how parents communicate with their children about weight issues, she very sensibly personalized the topic by interviewing someone who would know. This was a mother, Virginia Smith, who had previously had initiat …

Childhood Obesity News salutes the launch of an 18-week trial study of Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone app, in collaboration with three institutions in Alelaide, Australia — Flinders University, Flinders Medical Centre, and the Child and Adolescent Men …

In Australia, Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone app is the subject of an 18-week study, with the collaboration of researchers from Flinders University, Medical Centre, and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). As we mentioned, bariatric …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News introduced Ellen Burne, a bariatric surgery patient who indicated that a program like Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone application would have been a good thing for her younger self to have access to. (In the picture on o …

Readers of Childhood Obesity News will recognize Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go iPhone app on the device held by the radiant young woman. Now, it’s showing up in a new place, on the cover of Southern Health News magazine, published by Australia’s Southern Ade …

Relative to this news item, here is part of a letter from an anonymous reader of Childhood Obesity News: I heard that giving a baby solid food too soon could cause lifelong problems with digestion, and intended to keep my daughter on a bottle for a few …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at a detailed and comprehensive article by Stan Cox, about how the soda industry makes $4 billon every year on the sugar-sweetened beverages bought through the SNAP program (formerly “food stamps”). As usual, som …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned how, whenever the sugar-sweetened beverage industry is threatened with some legal restriction, like not being eligible for SNAP (food stamps) purchase, other corporations tend to pile on. Lawyers emerge from …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at some of the ways in which individuals and businesses and megacorporations profit from the obesity epidemic — gyms, diet meal manufacturers, medical practitioners with less-than-pristine ethics, programs that …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned an article by Karen Canella, titled “Three Ways to Profit From a Super-Sized Trend,” in which she advised readers: In 2012, consumers spent $5 billion on Weight Watchers’ branded products and services… From …

Unfortunately, childhood obesity usually continues on into adult obesity, because as time goes by it gets harder and harder to lose weight. Habits solidify, and the body itself fights to maintain the overweight condition to which it has become accustom …

It’s very tempting to blame parents, and especially mothers, for the childhood obesity epidemic. This is nearly inevitable because, as Lisen Stromberg admits, the mom is usually the “food and exercise gate-keeper” of the family. In most households, the …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned research by a Washington State University student that showed: …[M]oms who eat in response to their emotions or who are easily tempted by the sight, scent or taste of food had children with a strong desire …

Childhood Obesity News has spoken before of the uses made of the “Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort” (ECLS-B), a huge study of 14,000 children in which information was collected when they were 9 months old and 4 years old, and then again …

Sorry, moms of the world, but once again it all comes down to you. Or perhaps that should be, it all comes down on you — the blame or, as professionals call it, the responsibility. Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at a study showing how detrim …

Dr. Brian Saelens of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute is also a University of Washington pediatrics professor, and according to the study made by him and a large number of co-authors, geography is destiny. They studied kids in Seattle and San …

Pediatrician Sue Hubbard, a.k.a. “The Kid’s Doctor,” hosts a TV show and believes in the importance of family routines. Along with many others in the health care field, she expressed her opinions about an Ohio State University study whose results seeme …

Just pick three random headlines: Parents influence kids on eating, fitness Parents misjudge risks of childhood obesity, survey finds Parents in survey take responsibility for childhood obesity The first one pertains to Duke University which, like so m …

It used to be fat was thought of as pretty much inert. Then scientific research brought about an “Everything you know is wrong” moment, and fat was declared to be a metabolically active organ. As Deepak Chopra puts it: Fat tissue produces literally doz …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News mentioned Dr. Andrew Bremer and his concern that “McDonald’s and chains of its ilk are contributing to obesity.” That means fast-food joints in general. Some of them are actually changing their ways, often because of l …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at how Tim Carman constructed an article around the gimmick of imagining the far-out funny stuff that could happen if the McDonald’s corporation were allowed to do anything it wanted at the most recent Olympics. …

Every now and then, it’s necessary to check the fast-food front and see what the big boys have been up to. For instance, McDonald’s got some publicity when a man made news by restricting his diet to McDonald’s fare during his monthlong training period …

In desperation, people have come up with all kinds of ideas to end childhood obesity. One alarming headline went like this: Use law enforcement to get people to change eating habits, says UCLA panel… Yikes! That point of view is far from mainstream, …

Last time, we talked about a group discussion arranged by the authors of Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. It was conducted with the goal of rejecting no suggestion, however weird, because the unimpeded flow of ideas turns out to be …

Disclaimer: Yesterday’s weird ideas sometimes turn out to be today’s brilliant breakthroughs. Today’s unlikely conjectures may be tomorrow’s world-saving innovations. Or not. Sometimes it is hard to tell. But in such a desperate situation as a worldwid …

Currently, according to federal law as embodied in the Social Security Act (which covers Medicare), various kinds of professionals can provide Medical Nutrition Therapy (dietary counseling) for patients with diabetes and obesity. Though they must meet …

Talk about your problems with your parents, friends, doctor, minister, or a counselor. While excessive weight gain can occur at any age, many parents don’t address the issue until the child is older and it has become a much bigger problem. When you wai …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at some of the mistakes doctors make, but what could they be doing differently, and correctly? Dr. Pretlow believes in the usefulness of asking obese kids about their lives and feelings, especially the feelings t …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at some of the possible interactions between doctors, patients, and the attitudes they both bring to their meetings, especially when the common ground is obesity. For The Wall Street Journal, Melinda Beck made a …

Obesity-hating may be the last socially acceptable form of bigotry, under which people seem to think it’s okay to champion inequality and practice discrimination. When control is in the hands of an airline, or a retail clothing store that refuses to ca …