Dr. Pretlow’s latest paper, “Treatment of Child/Adolescent Obesity Using the Addiction Model: A Smartphone App Pilot Study,” will soon appear in the highly-respected print publication Childhood Obesity and can also be found online. Today, let’s gain a …

Last week, Childhood Obesity News explored the four individual stories of obese kids from the film Bite Size: Emily, Moy, Davion, and KeAnna. Guess what just happened over at iTunes? Bite Size has arrived there. We have said this before, but it is wort …

A new paper, Treatment of Child/Adolescent Obesity Using the Addiction Model: A Smartphone App Pilot Study,  will appear in the next print edition of the journal Childhood Obesity. This publication signals another advance in spreading the idea of using …

The introductory material about Bite Size can be found in the earlier Childhood Obesity News post about Emily, one of four young people whose stories are told by the film. We also “met” Moy, a gaming enthusiast and novice filmmaker. Today’s discussion …

Bite Size is a captivating film that follows the weight loss journeys of four American kids. Childhood Obesity News already took a close look at two of them, Emily in Florida and Moy in Southern California. The other two young people are both from Miss …

Moy (short for Moyses) is one of the four young subjects of Bite Size, a very engaging movie that lets the kids and the grownups all speak their own truths. (Childhood Obesity News  has already looked at Emily’s story, and will look at the other two in …

The film Bite Size explores the lives of four young people, ranging from age 11 to 13, then catches up with them one year down the road. It tracks the weight loss journeys of two girls and two boys, all diagnosed as clinically obese. Two are coastal ki …

The topic of meal size versus meal frequency has not yet been exhausted. Neither has the thin or possibly nonexistent line between frequent small meals and snacks. Many authorities have opinions for or against snacking, and many researchers have garner …

Yes, no matter what your philosophy of snacking is, someone out there disagrees with you and can prove his point. Consumers are inundated with advice about what, when, where, why, and how to eat, along with other input promoting the exact opposite to a …

The W8Loss2Go smartphone application is designed to halt food cravings and stop the urge to snack between meals. The 5-month program starts by eliminating the most tempting “problem foods” one or two at a time, a process which was shown by the prelimin …

Or maybe it isn’t. As Childhood Obesity News has discussed, a person is apt to occasionally think, “Everything I know is wrong,” especially when encountering contradictory headlines about the same topic. This is particularly true in the world of weight …

In the spirit of the previous post, “Why Everything You Know is Wrong,”  here are some contrarian viewpoints on various foodstuffs that are said to affect childhood obesity. Carbohydrates: Kris Gunnars collected a number of “debunked nutrition myths,” …

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 …

As Dr. Pretlow has observed, it can be difficult to get young people to express their thoughts and feelings about their own obesity.  For this reason, the relationship between weight and quality of life in adolescents is a topic somewhat shrouded in my …

Can a mother make her child morbidly obese? Mothers are easily blamed for anything, rightly or wrongly, for reasons that seem obvious to those who do it. Childhood Obesity News related the tragic story of morbidly obese Texan Hector Garcia, who died la …

Happy holidays! It’s a tough time of year for people who struggle with food addiction and obesity. Here are some assorted suggestions from many sources. No single one will keep your child from becoming obese or solve her or his existing problem. But ev …

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 …

We are almost to the end of Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, but don’t be fooled — we need to keep that awareness level high during the other 11 months, too. A parent might think, “What’s the beef? I never tied my kid down, stuck a funnel in his mo …

Fresh Stop share Once again, September is Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, because the problem is still with us. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 17% of American children are obese, and a lot of them are preschool-age kids. These y …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News wondered out loud what can be done about the basic problem of childhood obesity, or what at least some researchers have identified as the basic problem — a weak bond between mother and child. The younger the child, t …

Hydration for Health (H4H) is a group with a mission: to convince the world that the healthiest way to hydrate is by simply drinking water. Their method is to share educational materials, practical tools, and scientific research. Here is the crux of th …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at some of the foods available at the grocery store or even the health food store, that give a false impression of their integrity. Or maybe it’s just that we have a mistaken idea of what to expect. Dr. Julie Tw …

“Design” is a term that has always drawn an emotional response, whether positive or negative, and it makes a difference at every level of life’s activities, starting first thing in the morning. What size should a breakfast cereal bowl be? Big enough to …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at part of the conversation between author Michael Prager and Dr. Christopher Ochner, a researcher in obesity and nutrition. They touched upon many points, but the big takeaway from Dr. Ochner’s studies has to d …

Childhood Obesity News discussed the conversation between Michael Prager, whose field is personal sustainability, and research scientist Dr. Christopher Ochner. There are more issues that deserve attention. Dr. Ochner holds the very pragmatic view that …

In the endeavor to reduce childhood obesity — at least far enough that it can no longer be considered an epidemic — long-term change is what one journalist called “the brass ring.” For readers unfamiliar with the concept, the brass ring is the prize …

To achieve durable change and sustained weight loss, kids need a lot of buttressing, a lot of outside support, and what’s more, they need the right kind of support. Anything that sounds like nagging will be rebuffed and have the opposite effect from wh …

The first study to focus on pediatric long-term weight control using the socio-ecological model was conducted by Dr. Denise Wilfley. The basis is cognitive behavioral therapy. The research team concluded that, even after a successful weight loss progra …

We have seen that cognitive behavioral therapy comes in several flavors and that it can be quite successful in promoting behavioral change by breaking negative behavior cycles and restructuring harmful patterns. Appetitive traits are vulnerabilities li …

In the short term, many obesity interventions achieve an encouraging degree of success, but a year or five years later, a follow-up shows a different picture. As Childhood Obesity News has described, cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT is designed to p …