Category: Food Addiction

My name is Jessica, and I’m a processed food addict. A little dramatic, yes… but lately I’m kind of feeling like I need AA for high fructose corn syrup… The rest of Jessica’s blog post is a fairly ordinary declaration of good intentions, but that f …

The idea that food can be addictive has been gathering momentum for some time now. For a website focused on addiction, Jessica Fargen collected some frightening stories, like the one from a woman whose typical breakfast was a couple of sausage and egg …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News mentioned cross-heritability, a human trait that results in the tendency of people who shed one addiction, only to pick up another one. Apparently, addiction has more to do with the individual than with the substance o …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News considered the story of Natasha Harris, a New Zealander whose death was attributed to her Coca-Cola addiction. In the comments appended to that story, a couple of really scary ones alluded to children. A woman addicted …

Childhood Obesity News is very much about the existence of actual, literal addictiveness in manufactured food-like substances. Another favorite topic is Coca-Cola. This irresistible headline combines both: Coca-Cola Addiction a Factor in Woman’s Death …

Nearly from birth, American kids are inundated with ads for foods that send their taste buds into overdrive but don’t do them any nutritional favors. Parents can’t do much about that. Closer to home, parents have some say about what their kids are serv …

There is a person in charge of comparing the obesity rates of Florida with Minnesota, and so on. It’s Captain Heidi Blanck, Ph.D., who works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — specifically, for the Division of Nutrition, Physic …

The Tale of Two Athletes: The Story of Jumper and The Thumper is the title of another new children’s book whose purpose is to help kids either avoid or escape the trap of overweight. The authors are a married couple who have a real-life practice. M. Ch …

Sometimes a book title just grabs your attention. How about this one? The Taming of the Chew, by Denise Lamothe, who is a psychologist and speaker as well as an author. The allusion is, of course, to the Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew, which …

There are several different ways to compile and compare obesity statistics, and even different ways to measure obesity. Often a researcher will zero in on a particular group. In general, something like 16% of 2-19 year-olds are in serious need of diffe …

This news is brand new! Only a few days ago (May 17), ChangeLab Solutions became the new name of the national nonprofit organization formerly known as the Public Health Law & Policy. Either way, childhood obesity is a major concern. By the old name …

The world’s youth are inundated with social media, and barring a lethal solar flare, that’s not going to change. Accusations of frivolity and sheer time-wastingness are justified. But social media’s dark side is strongly counterbalanced by the positive …

The film Super Size Me really hit a nerve, and also has won a major award at the Sundance Film Festival when it was released. Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s food for a month and documented the results. His mission was to make some points ab …

The cultural consciousness is slowly adapting to the idea that some relationship might exist between childhood obesity and sleep, but exactly “what’s up with that” is not yet clear to anyone. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has several ideas, …

Two years ago, a childhood obesity study made big news by confirming that all waistlines are not created equal. For Clinical Psychiatry News, Kate Johnson summarized: Extreme obesity is on the rise in children and adolescents, and certain ethnic/racial …

The importance of family meals was a recent topic here, because many health care professionals believe that having dinner together is a crucial piece of the childhood obesity prevention puzzle. Life is very complicated, and sometimes it’s difficult to …

The Pediatric Academic Societies met in Boston not long ago and, as so often happens when health professionals gather, the subject of the childhood obesity epidemic was on the table. Dr. Rachel Gross of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine told the …

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM-IV, there are six substance-abuse criteria, and if a patient has three out of six, he or she has an addiction. Childhood Obesity News has previously enumerated the “top six reasons why food add …

The challenge? In the struggle against childhood obesity, there are a hundred challenges. It’s like the mythological Hydra, the beast with many ferociously fanged heads, and every time a hero would cut one off, it would grow back. Some days are like th …

Claire Bates is one of the many health writers who has noticed the tendency of childhood obesity studies to indict parents. If children are to make lifestyle changes, their chances are much better if it’s a family affair. Bates says: Researchers found …

Childhood Obesity News was talking about the discovery of several genes, including two particularly significant ones, that appear to influence childhood obesity in kids of European ancestry. The full report, by the Early Growth Genetics (EGG) Consortiu …

Although they are not discussed as often as other organs such as the heart, the intestines are very important. Jill Escher mentions them, when dismissing the theory that sugar is just empty calories: No, no calorie is empty — each bit of digestible st …

“Why is my kid fat?” is the question asked by many parents. In some cases the answers are obvious, but in others, not so much. There are many theories, and no matter what else may or may not be going on in genetics, manufacturing, or the environment, t …

Styles come and go in our culture. Wasp waistlines were the style in the 1950s. (And women wore hats for decoration, not just to keep their ears warm.) There was a time when grade school kids did calisthenics to the (caution: earworm alert!) tune of “C …

CALPIRG, also known as the California Public Interest Research Group, issued a report titled, “Apples to Twinkies: Comparing Federal Subsidies of Fresh Produce and Junk Food.” As described by P.J. Huffstutter of the LA Times, the report “makes the case …

Adverse criticism led to the shutdown of a Disney World attraction that had barely even opened. At the same time, Georgia’s Strong4Life advertising campaign drew criticism from far and wide, partly for the ridiculous reason of being too ethnically dive …

In the tobacco industry, a certain amount of accountability has been achieved, at least on paper, through some lawsuits. Would increased accountability in a legal, financially responsible sense, do anything to slow down the childhood obesity epidemic, …

Way back in 2003, Dr. Neal D. Barnard wrote about the cheese industry’s awareness of its product’s addictive qualities. He said that strategies are carefully crafted by the marketing staff to lead “cheese cravers” into further involvement with their pr …

Childhood Obesity News has been talking about different ways that parents, teachers, and health care professionals have found of listening to kids and putting the information to useful work. A nonprofit group called ACTIVE Life attempts to fight obesit …

Back in 2006, Raj Patel raised consciousness with his book, Stuffed and Starved, pointing out what journalist Simon Butler calls a “bizarre paradox” about the people of planet Earth: In the poverty-stricken global South, the poorest cannot afford to fe …