How Be Pro-Active and Protective

March 28, 2024
Leave a Comment

Childhood is the time to spread out before a young human the smorgasbord of possibilities, consisting not of food items but of experience items.

Oprah on Weight Stigma and Displacement Intervention

March 27, 2024
Leave a Comment

Oprah Winfrey’s weight loss journey throws light on how displacement activities work in tandem with GLP-1 medications.

Life Hacks for Parents

March 26, 2024
Leave a Comment

Try to look at every parenting annoyance as a challenge, and every challenge as an opportunity, and see what happens.

Parents, Proactive and Protective, Continued

March 21, 2024
Leave a Comment

Although the corporate magnates exert pressure on us to eat worthless pseudo-food, parents do not have to surrender to that pressure.

Shame, Blame, and Oprah’s Special

March 20, 2024
Leave a Comment

Oprah talks candidly about her own experience trying to lose weight in a special that aired on March 18 and is getting a lot of attention.

Parents, Proactive and Protective

March 19, 2024
Leave a Comment

Yes, the global marketing machine is powerful, but parents do not have to hopelessly surrender to it. Resistance to junk food is possible.

Sometimes You Don’t Know What to Think

March 12, 2024
Leave a Comment

What are the effective methods in weight management and reducing childhood obesity? Opinions vary. This is what research shows.

Landmark — Junk Food Legally Defined

March 5, 2024
Leave a Comment

There’s a proven correlation between increasing child obesity and the ever-mounting abundance of ultra-processed foods in stores and family kitchens.

GLP-1 Weight Loss Medications in the News

February 21, 2024
Leave a Comment

Here’s a look at the latest headlines in the world of GLP-1 weight loss medications and their use in opioid abuse treatment.

Selling Crap to Kids, Part 10

February 8, 2024
Leave a Comment

The food and beverage industry’s efforts to recruit as many bent academics as possible to volubly cheer for Team Sugar is part of a larger strategy.

Selling Crap to Kids, Part 9

February 6, 2024
Leave a Comment

Marketing should be a grown-up conversation, with the kids left out of it. Advertising to children is gradual brainwashing to get what the adult wants.

Selling Crap to Kids, Part 8

February 2, 2024
Leave a Comment

Because children do not yet have the necessary cognitive skills in place they are unable to tell the difference between entertainment and advertising.

GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs in the News, Again

February 1, 2024
Leave a Comment

Let’s take a look at the latest headlines to glimpse at what’s happening in the world of weight loss meds.

Selling Crap to Kids, Part 7

January 30, 2024
Leave a Comment

How about just not advertising to minors, period? After all, it’s not as if every child in America has a paycheck burning a hole in her or his pocket.

Selling Crap to Kids, Part 6

January 25, 2024
Leave a Comment

While some companies became more conscious and more conscientious, we’ve seen plenty of examples that have no connection with morality, profitable or otherwise.

GLP-1: More Competition, Soaring Prices, and What Medicare Won’t Cover

January 24, 2024
Leave a Comment

The weight loss drug market is heating up to keep up with the demand despite soaring prices.

Selling Crap to Kids, Part 5

January 23, 2024
Leave a Comment

This is an overview of the food industry’s ambitious project of brainwashing children to nag their parents to buy them the worst possible excuses for food.

Anti-Obesity Medications and Functional Impairment, Continued

January 18, 2024
Leave a Comment

This is the continuation of an exploration of the possible negative effects of the new wave of weight-loss drugs, which began with a recent post.

A New Anti-Obesity Medications Study Reveals Interesting Insights

January 17, 2024
Leave a Comment

New research found that the majority of people who are prescribed anti-obesity medication discontinue the drugs after a year.

Anti-Obesity Medications and Functional Impairment

January 16, 2024
Leave a Comment

The new anti-obesity meds were touted as miraculous for a while. Then slowly, the miraculous illusion began to fade. Here’s why the honeymoon might be over.

Start Making Sense

January 11, 2024
Leave a Comment

We have trouble wrapping our heads around the paradox of obesity and food insecurity. How can they both exist together? Yet here we are.

Childhood Obesity Specialists Struggle to Get GLP-1 Agonists

January 10, 2024
Leave a Comment

Here are the challenges faced by pediatric obesity specialists in accessing weight-loss meds approved by the FDA for weight loss in kids 12 years or older.

Surprising News About Activity

January 9, 2024
Leave a Comment

Recent reports show that at least three hours per day of light physical activity, which includes walking, doing chores, biking, etc., can reduce obesity.

Tackling the Same Childhood Obesity Issues in the New Year

January 3, 2024
Leave a Comment

Two recent studies found an increase in childhood obesity. Here’s what we can do to curb it, starting with the parents.

Holidays and Their Aftermath

January 2, 2024
Leave a Comment

We got stressed out, we ate too much, we drank too much, and now we don’t feel very good about ourselves. Here’s what we can do to minimize stress.

Spare Yourself a Ton of Grief

December 29, 2023
Leave a Comment

A very useful resolution not only for the new year but for this holiday season we are in right now is to clear our subconscious minds of expectations.

The Holidays, You, Me, and Others

December 27, 2023
Leave a Comment

What can one do for oneself and others? For starters, empathy is all-important.

The Upside of Rules

December 26, 2023
Leave a Comment

Rules are really just a starting points on which we build our psychological houses. They are useful as reference points.

Sidestep the Winter Holiday Blues

December 22, 2023
Leave a Comment

The food-as-hospitality equation is beautiful but also dangerous. Ideally hosts should refrain from goading their guests into consuming more than they wish to.

Circumvent the Winter Holiday Blues

December 21, 2023
Leave a Comment

For anyone who aspires to be a worthy role model, the holiday season is the perfect time to practice all our best habits and set a good example for the kids.

FAQs and Media Requests: Click here…

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Obesity top bottom

The Book

OVERWEIGHT: What Kids Say explores the obesity problem from the often-overlooked perspective of children struggling with being overweight.

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Dr. Robert A. Pretlow is a pediatrician and childhood obesity specialist. He has been researching and spreading awareness on the childhood obesity epidemic in the US for more than a decade.
You can contact Dr. Pretlow at:

Presentations

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the American Society of Animal Science 2020 Conference
What’s Causing Obesity in Companion Animals and What Can We Do About It

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the World Obesity Federation 2019 Conference:
Food/Eating Addiction and the Displacement Mechanism

Dr. Pretlow’s Multi-Center Clinical Trial Kick-off Speech 2018:
Obesity: Tackling the Root Cause

Dr. Pretlow’s 2017 Workshop on
Treatment of Obesity Using the Addiction Model

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation for
TEC and UNC 2016

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the 2015 Obesity Summit in London, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s invited keynote at the 2014 European Childhood Obesity Group Congress in Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2013 European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2011 International Conference on Childhood Obesity in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2010 Uniting Against Childhood Obesity Conference in Houston, TX.

Food & Health Resources