One possible choice is to accept it quietly that you can only go so far while trying to lose weight. Another is to cross into the militant advocacy of obesity.

“Food Psych” podcast creator Christy Harrison says that food is food, and it’s time to stop labeling with our brains and start listening to our intuition.

Even with all the research, is it too soon to say of any particular factor that it does or does not influence obesity, or how extensive that influence may be?

This is a continuation of the list of posts that examine the parallels between tobacco, alcohol, and the overconsumption of food.

Can measures designed to reduce smoking and drinking also work against overeating?

Even with problems that seem comparable, like the widespread use of tobacco and alcohol, it is surprisingly difficult to transfer solutions to other areas.

If a policy or an intervention made a dent in smoking, alcohol abuse, or other common vice, can it be useful to stop the obesity epidemic?

Here continues the summary of posts that examine the efforts to eliminate smoking, and how they might be adapted to quell the obesity epidemic.

How would the measures intended to curb smoking and deal with alcohol addiction translate to childhood obesity prevention?

All food advertising directed at children should be banned. Food companies are no dopes: an addicted kid is a customer for life.

What are the advantages and the downsides of adapting control mechanisms applied to alcohol and tobacco products to reversing the obesity epidemic?

Could the means used to reduce consumption of alcohol and tobacco be adaptable to the seemingly unstoppable epidemic of food overconsumption in the U.S.?

Can any anti-smoking measures be adapted to anti-obesity efforts? Public opinion does alter, and legislation can change behavior to a certain extent.

Any effort at persuasion through public relations can fail if it is perceived as shaming, and public health campaigns that rely on stigmatization can backfire.

If one third of our kids were suffering from asthma due to air pollution, we’d take draconian measures. Why is childhood obesity different?

Many drinkers and smokers consciously or unconsciously believe that they should not, so they’re OK with “sin taxes” — but it’s more complicated with junk food.

With tobacco and alcohol, the government both encourages and chastises their existence, sale and use, while profiting from the sale.

Portion control is all-important, and can be practiced both at home and out in the world. Banning “all-you-can-eat” restaurants might help.

Overeating is as much a threat as drinking and smoking to Americans’ health and the national budget. Can the methods used to fight any one of them cross over?

Clamping down on smoking in hospitals led to the first industry-wide ban of workplace smoking, and the idea caught on in other businesses.

Smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol and overeating can take a toll. If a methodology can reduce one of those problems, is it transferable? If not, why not?

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at measures taken around smoking, and, to a lesser extent, around alcohol, that are transferrable to obesity prevention.

Healthful meals, parental education, and portion control, to give three examples, are essential elements of Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go program.

Attempting to make overeating socially unacceptable, like smoking, seems like a good idea, but public relations experts do not always strike the right note.

Advertising copywriters use different details, but the pitch is the same — an appeal to the customer’s FOMO. It works with tobacco and it works with junk food.

Even though specific brands are not shown, there is an alarming rise of tobacco use in on-demand or streaming visual content.

After the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, smoking in movies is said to have decreased according to three metrics — proportion, enumeration, and duration.

In the realm of positive mental and emotional associations, smoking, drinking and overeating are capable of forming self-reinforcing loops.

Campaigns that promote healthy eating and exercise may be counterproductive. Those programs should instead educate kids as to why they overeat, and how to cope.

What is the rationale for government involvement in either smoking or the eating patterns that lead to obesity?