Category: Food Addiction

We’ve talked about the question, “What is food?” We’ll be talking about it more, but today the question is, “What is addiction?” The food addiction paradigm is being taken seriously by many, such as the uncredited author of an article titled “Overcome …

Everything you know is wrong, including the fact that everything you know is wrong. It used to be said that advertisers should be able to get by, spending only half as much, because 50 percent of all advertising is wasted. Only problem — nobody knew w …

The "Fuel Up To Play 60" Campaign is sponsored by Domino's Pizza, among others. (Part Two of a Two-Part Post)(View Part One) by Robert A. Pretlow, M.D. My last post had to do with the difficulty of medical science in accepting food addic …

HFCS lobby was a sponsor of the Obesity Society 2008 scientific meeting. (Part One of a Two-Part Post)(View Part Two) by Robert A. Pretlow, M.D. Why Does The Obesity Community Reject Addiction? In September 2009, I conducted a plenary session presentat …

Have you noticed that it’s possible to buy chocolate-coated just-about-anything? Pretzels, coffee beans, bananas, popcorn, squash, potato chips, even bacon. You name it, and someone has coated it with chocolate. Humans love chocolate so much, they will …

A recent comment to “The Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm, Part 6” post on the Childhood Obesity News blog describes the “Go, Slow, Whoa!” widget tool created by the We Can! Program of NHLBI, NIH. The widget’s purpose is to impact childhood obesity. It …

Dr. David Kessler’s book The End of Overeating was reviewed by Shannon Brown, who notes that Kessler is the person we can thank for curbing the nicotine industry’s desire to target children in advertising, the crusade he took on as Commissioner of the …

At the University of Sydney, Australia, researchers looked at parental attitudes about overweight and obesity in children and teens, and Michael Booth wrote up the results. Other team members were L.A. King, D.L. Pagnini, R. L. Wilkenfeld, and S. L. Bo …

Here’s an interesting phrase: “spontaneous recovery.” It sounds like it should mean something good, but this is counter-intuitive, because in addiction medicine the term doesn’t mean anything good. It means someone who seemed to have gotten better, but …

Film Journal International brings us Frank Lovece’s comprehensive review of a dramedy called Lbs. The subtitle is “Heavyweight human drama of a food addict going cold turkey.” The reviewer is especially impressed by the dialogue between two friends who …

A recent New York Times report by Rachel Cromidas, on the rough Chicago neighborhood of Englewood, quotes a neighborhood resident who says, “Shopping at a corner store is too expensive, and they don’t sell stuff every day, so you have to check the date …

“Of course not!” That’s a normal human response, when somebody suggests that we refuse to face the truth about something. We deny that there is a problem, including the problem of our non-recognition of the problem. That’s why they call it denial! Lisa …

In a nicely balanced report for the Houston Chronicle, Kim Morgan explores the question of whether food addiction is real. She interviews a counselor who has his doubts, and a counselor who leads food addiction recovery support groups modeled after Alc …

In some circles, putting forward the idea that food can be an addictive substance will win a person the reputation of a serious crackpot. This is often the fate of innovators who have more than average awareness, and who see a bit more deeply into soci …

First, let’s look at one of the wrong ways to eat, as demonstrated by the dinosaurs called sauropods, who are, incidentally, now extinct. According to an uncredited article at Alpha Galileo, researchers at the University of Bonn, Germany, unraveled a c …

The root word of “morbid” means “death” in Latin, and morbid obesity interferes with the basic functions of life, like breathing or walking. Morbid obesity is generally defined as being 100 lbs. over the ideal weight, or twice as much as ideal weight, …

Just when you thought you’d heard the epitome of absurdity, along comes another crazy notion to top the last one. How about formula for toddlers that is laced with chocolate and vanilla flavorings? Of course the stuff is marketed as not only benign, bu …

Huffington Post blogger Jan Shepherd, who had lost 200 pounds and kept it off for nearly 10 years, talks about handling addictive behaviors: As addictive behaviors go, ones dealing with food and eating are among the most complicated and complex. I’m no …

One of the foundations of Dr. Pretlow’s philosophy is the principle that the kids themselves are the experts, and they are worth listening to. In fact, we’d better listen to them, or we will wind up spending a lot of resources on programs that are doom …

We recently commented here on an article titled “Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” by Arun Gupta, one of The Indypendent’s founding editors. Democracy Now host Amy Goodman was impressed by that essay too, and consequently invited Gupta to be on h …

Titled “Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” this classic examination of a food fad was published by The Indypendent, of which author Arun Gupta is also a founding editor. Gupta notes the increasing proliferation of pork fat in the diets of so many …

Through anecdotal evidence found in their own lives and the lives of loved ones, many Americans have acknowledged that junk food is addictive. The researchers, while studying the reactions of brain and body to certain kinds of foods, are finding tangib …

A recent study published by Scripps Research Institute indicates that foods laced with fat, sugar, and salt are capable of causing addiction similar to the addiction to nicotine and cocaine. At DiversityInc, Sam Ali quotes one of the researchers, Paul …

Extreme measures are needed to deal with the childhood obesity epidemic, there’s no doubt about it, but is taxation a step that would help? For purposes of this discussion, let’s define junk food as whatever the kids find most difficult to resist — th …

When the body is considered as nothing more than a physical entity, all the answers are so easy, and everyone knows them. To lose weight, burn more energy and stoke the machine with higher-quality fuel, and less of it. Ta-dah! Or not. Except in the cas …

Today we are watching a video from a class given by Dr. Elissa Epel at the University of California San Francisco, where she is a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry. She and her colleagues have been studying the ways in which stress can lea …

Marilla Mulwane says, I do not believe in starving yourself to lose weight, or in having to spend hours at the gym every day, or in not being able to enjoy your favorite foods. Did that catch your attention? It did mine. Yes, Marilla, tell me more abou …