Oprah and the Weight Loss Surgery Kids
This episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired a while back, but it’s a classic. Oprah invited some formerly obese teens, a couple of parents, and a couple of doctors — including Dr. Mehmet Oz, who hangs out in the audience contributing medical illumination when needed. The show also features some very useful animated graphics […]
Comfort Eating, Food Addiction, and the DSM-V Manual
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 understood to be as real as addiction to hard drugs, alcohol, and even the range of […]
The Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm, Part 7
We have talked about the Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm before, and its various components such as the existence of cleverly engineered highly pleasurable foods, the ubiquitous availability of those foods to kids, and the way the products are marketed. We have discussed how stress and obesity go together like a horse and carriage, or, in […]
Stress-Eating and Recession Obesity
You know a writer is onto something when a piece she wrote almost two years ago is even more true than on the day it was first published. Georgia Lund, a contributor to the Yahoo! Network, made a few observations about the relationship between the murky fiscal environment we have been immersed in and the […]
Allergies, Addiction, Childhood Obesity, and Halloween: All Scary
“In the interest of fighting the childhood obesity epidemic, I’ve decided to eat all the Halloween candy I bought.” Just kidding. The line is from Someecards, a company that devises — you guessed it — greeting cards in electronic format. The picture above is not the ecard, by the way. The boy in the picture […]
Thoughts About Real Kids and Real Food
Liz Snyder is full of ideas for healthier families, and she shares several of them in her fascinating article about kids and food. Snyder has a Master’s degree in nutritional anthropology, and she describes herself as a food activist. Snyder’s special concern is nutrition in schools, and she is also very interested in what the […]
Flaky Fringe or Cutting Edge? (Part 4)
Ryan Andrews is a competitive bodybuilder with a stack of credentials including Registered Dietician and Health and Fitness Instructor, plus he is a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Sports Nutritionist, and Personal Trainer. Andrews is all about energy balance, and the elements involved in it, and the various parts of us that are impacted by […]
The Treacherous Mouth
Here are some additional excerpts from and observations about Kathryn Phelan’s memoir of a 165-pound teen who wanted to be on the basketball team.
Displacement Mechanism Posts
Here’s part two of the roundup of our posts on the subject of displacement behaviors, which includes comfort eating.
A Winter Holidays Encyclopedia — 12
New Year’s Eve is pretty much a grownup occasion, but as always, the kids are watching, and they see more than we realize.