Category: Food Addiction

The food addiction paradigm is a primary cause of the childhood and adult obesity epidemic. Highly pleasurable foods, such as junk food and fast food, can be addictive. Posts in this section explore food addiction and its impact on obesity.

Why Parents Don’t Want to Hear About Food Addiction, Part 5

February 11, 2011
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Yes, we have talked before about why a lot of parents just don’t want to hear about food addiction. But there are so many reasons! Some parents don’t believe that food addiction exists. Some may accept the new paradigm in a general sort of way, and be …

The “DSM-5” and Obesity, Part 2

February 8, 2011
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We looked yesterday at the difficulties faced by the editors of the forthcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, DSM-5, as explained by Gary Greenberg, who also talks about the currently favored method of considering an array of symptoms. Until a mor …

The “DSM-5” and Obesity, Part 1

February 7, 2011
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We’ll get to the obesity relevance in a minute, but meanwhile, here is an interesting detail about the upcoming revised edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The Roman numerals are being dropped in favor of Arabic number …

Comfort Eating, Food Addiction, and the DSM-V Manual

February 4, 2011
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Not long ago we mentioned Jennifer LaRue Huget, the Washington Post reporter who began to take seriously the notion of food addiction after meeting Michael Prager. This is encouraging, because childhood obesity won’t be stopped until food addiction is …

Comfort Eating and Regular People

February 3, 2011
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The psychological food dependence-addiction lens is a new and still somewhat unpopular paradigm, because it has to do with addiction to food as the cause of much obesity. Looking through that lens, we see that while legislative measures are useful, wha …

Comfort Eating and Kelly Osbourne

February 2, 2011
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Here is Kelly Osbourne, looking much different than she used to, on the cover of the February issue of British edition of Cosmopolitan, with an article inside, titled “I was an emotional eater.” Reporter Kara Gause says, [… S]he’s at once Madonna circa …

Comfort Eating and Carrie Fisher

February 1, 2011
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Yesterday we discussed the difficulty, for parents and health professionals concerned about childhood obesity, in having a positive effect, or making any impact at all, on the production, advertising, or availability of junk food. Call it less-than-opt …

Snacks and Labels, Junk and Nature

January 28, 2011
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In December, Bruce Horovitz reported on a rather interesting event, the announcement by Frito-Lay that the corporation will start making half of its snacks from all-natural ingredients. (Frito-Lay, incidentally, is part of PepsiCo, so you know what kin …

Many Doctors Believe Food Can Be Addictive

January 27, 2011
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Can food be addictive in the same way as, for instance, heroin? Many doctors believe that it can. While some people are not very addiction-prone, others are, but are too busy being junkies involving some other substance, and food doesn’t do a thing for …

High Fructose Corn Syrup — Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

January 26, 2011
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Sometimes we get information overload fatigue, and we just don’t want to hear about one more thing that’s bad for us. We get tired of hearing bad news and just start filtering it out. Or we pick one bad thing to worry about, and let the other nine go a …

Let’s Hear It for the Early Adopters

January 25, 2011
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It’s always a pleasure to discover another person who endorses the view that there is such a thing as food addiction; who, in other words, looks at the childhood obesity epidemic through the psychological food dependence-addiction lens. The medical pro …

Reviews, Presentations, & Publications

January 24, 2011
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How gracious of Zoë Harcombe to send flattering words out into the world, in her review of Overweight: What Kids Say! For any author, the good opinion of a respected peer is a substantial reward. When that reviewer puts as much attention into the matte …

Food, Foodlike Substances, and Labeling

January 21, 2011
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When people are concerned about health, and especially about obesity, and they talk about food labeling, there are a couple of different things they might mean. Fast food restaurants with more than 20 branches now have to give the calorie count on thei …

Wake Up and Smell the Food Addiction

January 20, 2011
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“Is food addiction real?” This question is posed by Jennifer LaRue Huget in The Washington Post, and it is a question relevant to numerous other journalists, health professionals, educators, bureaucrats, researchers, parents across the nation, and, yes …

Calorie Labeling in Restaurants

January 19, 2011
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At the point in time when only a few municipalities had adopted the idea that restaurants should reveal the calorie counts of their dishes to the customers, a bunch of young people voiced their opinions at Weigh2Rock. This website has published a serie …

Addicted Rats Teach Us Obesity Lessons

January 17, 2011
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The connection between obesity, junk food, and addiction is becoming more and obvious. Remember last year, when the news came out about the rat studies at the Scripps Research Institute? Remember when we learned that junk food could be as addictive as …

Childhood Obesity: More Things to Worry About

January 14, 2011
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We know that kids in America and all over the world are miserable about their excess body weight. We know that obesity in the young can lead to the early onset of severe medical conditions that used to mainly afflict adults. We know that, for many peop …

Do Bad Genes Cause Big Jeans?

January 13, 2011
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In the area of childhood obesity, does genetic research lead to a light at the end of the tunnel, or a dead end? Is the whole genetic thing just a cop-out for people who are in denial about their food addiction? A couple of years ago, Maggie Fox of Reu …

Women Eat Food, Pray to God, Love

January 10, 2011
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It’s a trick title, of course, made from the two of 2010’s enormous-selling nonfiction books, as announced by Nielsen BookScan just the other day. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love was #2 (and also #4 in a different version, the “movie tie-in trade p …

Obesity Prediction Not So Ridiculous, Thanks to Food Corporations

January 5, 2011
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Justin Stoneman recently published an essay titled “America: A Big, Fat, Stupid Nation,” in which he expressed astonishment at what he characterizes as the ridiculous prediction that by the year 2020, three out of four Americans will be overweight or o …

Childhood Obesity Funding and Independence

December 30, 2010
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Dr. Pretlow’s December 20 post, “Childhood Obesity Science Conflicts of Interest,” set off an interesting chain of reactions. It expressed concern about the objectivity and impartiality of the new magazine, Childhood Obesity, which is a peer-reviewed s …

“Jelly and the Donuts” Vs. Childhood Obesity

December 29, 2010
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Childhood obesity is such a complicated problem that we need to come at it from every possible direction, and chip away at it from any angle that looks promising. Dr. Pretlow has been calling attention to the fact that food addiction is real, and needs …

Childhood Obesity Conflicts of Interest

December 20, 2010
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Childhood Obesity Science Conflicts of Interest If a tobacco company were to fund an anti-smoking scientific journal, most people would point out the glaring conflict of interest. Yet, a new peer-reviewed, scientific journal, Childhood Obesity (Mary An …

Obesity Tales, Part 2

December 16, 2010
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Connie Bennett quit sugar more than 10 years ago, and wrote about it in her book, Sugar Shock! This all-pervasive substance can be a problem not only for the obese, but for just about anybody. Bennett says, The theory of sugar addiction or dependency – …

Dietary Fat as Obesity Villain

December 14, 2010
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Let’s see what Dr. Mark Hyman, founder of The UltraWellness Center, has to say. We have quoted him before, by the way, on the subject of food addiction. He and Dr. Pretlow share an interesting characteristic. Neither of them are prejudiced against what …

Uncontrollable Cravings and Food Addiction

December 7, 2010
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Every social problem sooner or later manifests a person who embodies it, what the media calls “giving it a human face.” Among the confessions and pleas for help that have been posted in the Comfort Eating discussion at Weigh2Rock, the communications fr …

Sarah Palin Unfazed by Childhood Obesity

December 6, 2010
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Sarah Palin has been accused of being an addictive substance, in such headlines as (the following links in headlines are ours): “Why is Sarah Palin the crack cocaine addiction of the liberal party?” and “America’s addiction: Sarah Palin,” in which writ …

They Said It, We Believed It — Teens and Food Addiction

December 3, 2010
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One of the features of the Weigh2Rock website is the Comfort Eating Board, which is typical of the several different discussion groups that are available so kids can talk about and seek help for their obesity problems. It even has a search function. Ju …

The Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm, Part 4

December 1, 2010
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We have talked before about the “perfect storm” that Dr. Pretlow identifies as the cause of the childhood obesity epidemic. It’s a witch’s brew of at least five elements: the high-tech production of hedonic foods; their availability to kids; the increa …

Prediction for 2011: Food Addiction Will Still Exist

November 30, 2010
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Dr. Mark Hyman does not speak in polite euphemisms, but titles an essay in the bluntest terms, “Food Addiction: Could It Explain Why 70 Percent of Americans Are Fat?” Yes, it could! This is what Dr. Pretlow has been saying all along. There really is su …

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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