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 …

Childhood Obesity News has discussed the importance of the quality and quantity of sleep, especially for young children and teenagers. One study showed that young teenage boys are much more adversely affected by sleep deprivation than are girls in the …

At UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory, a team looked into how sleep deprivation impairs the brain, specifically in regard to food choices. Twenty-three adults took part, undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging after a good night’s …

Sean Croxton is being listened to by a lot of people these days. They even wear shirts emblazoned with the letters JERF, an acronym for his slogan “Just Eat Real Food.” He promotes the idea of personal responsibility because it’s so obviously the fines …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at earlier work done by the STRONG Kids Project in its attempt to identify the main causes of childhood obesity. This research program is hosted by the University of Illinois, and its name is short for Synergist …

A while back, a Scientific American article described the work of the STRONG Kids Project, whose home is the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. The acronym stands for Synergistic Theory and Research on Obesity and Nutrition Group, a …

The Fat Acceptance Movement is one of the more puzzling and problematic societal currents of the past few years. Many strange theories are afloat. Some people think that recognizing the health hazards of obesity is the moral equivalent of condemning ob …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News contemplated some of the various discomforts and humiliations of being an obese child or teenager. It seemed like there were a lot — but that wasn’t the end. No, Chapter 3 of Dr. Pretlow’s book Overweight: What Kids S …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at the lives of two celebrities who left obesity in the past, citing very different sources of motivation. Today, let’s take an overview of the motivations named by a bunch of youngsters. They’re not celebrities …

When interviewed by Alison Rosen, actor and comedian Adam Ray revealed that he had been “a big kid … not just chubby … pretty fat.” He added, “Fat kids know the true meaning of ‘seconds.’ ‘Cause guess what, that second plate? There’s maybe seconds …

Yesterday Childhood Obesity News looked at information indicating that when teenagers lose weight, their QOL (Quality of Life) scores rise. For a lot of teens, both obesity and depression are persistent coexisting conditions, although one or the other …

“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is an age-old question that capsulizes the mystery of causation. One of the areas where it applies is childhood obesity. Do kids start by being in emotional pain and adopt comfort eating as a palliative measu …

This story “torn from today’s headlines” is about a young Canadian who devoted a year to losing 130 pounds. Lucas Irwin decided to surprise his parents with what the reporter characterized as “the ultimate Christmas gift,” and in this he succeeded, par …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News considered the Cracked.com perspective. Now let’s see what the much more mainstream Dr. Phil (Phillip C. McGraw) has to say about the escape from obesity. Of course, Dr. Phil is encouraging people to use his method, wh …

How many country singers does it take to change a lightbulb? Two. One to change the bulb, and one to sing about how good the old one was. Okay, how about this version? How many obese children does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, but the lightb …

Against all odds, young actor Ricki Lake got some movie roles after Hairspray despite being overweight. But portraying an obese teen in a specific role where obesity was part of the plot was one thing, and being an obese adult actor going out for gener …

As a child of 6, Ricki Lake was taken to see the musical Annie and decided that she wanted to perform onstage. Around the same time, she was a victim of sexual abuse, which she believes contributed to her later obesity. Her subconscious reasoned that i …