Last time, we left off with a quotation from spin doctor Jeff Nedelman, to the effect that “No one commissions research anticipating a negative response.” It would appear that when giant corporations pay for studies to show the harmlessness of their pr …

Last time, Childhood Obesity News looked at a parody music video made by a Kansas high school class. It features scenes like the one shown here, where students droop over their desks, faint with hunger, and even the teacher seems to succumb to malnutri …

Childhood Obesity News takes a break from examining the case against vending machines in schools, to look at a report that brings up a basic question: Why does summer vacation even exist? Writer Paul Jury says the three-month hiatus “came about through …

Childhood Obesity News has examined some statements made by Big Soda spin doctor Jeff Nedelman that are open to interpretation. For instance: Causational studies are very expensive; to be credible must involve many participants over a long time and acc …

Anybody can search through online message boards and forums, and find something like a comment from a woman whose boyfriend switched from regular soda pop to the diet version and lost 20 pounds in a month. But is this a good idea? Yesterday, Childhood …

Robot doll Among those who are serious about shedding pounds, one of the standard joke targets is the person who eats a huge, calorie-laden meal accompanied by a diet soft drink. In the industry, corporate public-relations experts come up with justific …

In the summer of 2011, White House chef Sam Kass, wearing his other hat, that of Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives, spoke at the national Childhood Obesity Conference. In answer to a question about a California movement to ban the vend …

Writing for AlterNet, Martha Rosenberg highlighted five areas of modern life that are “under suspicion” as being responsible for why the average American man weighs 194 pounds and the average American woman weighs 165 pounds. Traditionally, the answer …

According to a University of Virginia study, children who drink sugar-sweetened beverages “daily” rather than “often” are more likely to have a problem with obesity, and this applies even to five-year-olds. The study looked at 9,600 children, all born …

Health professionals have to be very careful about assigning blame to parents. When treating an obese child, doctors and counselors can explain how the cooperation and support of the entire family are necessary. The thing they can’t say is that if the …

Britain’s National Obesity Observatory, in a paper on obesity and mental health, recommends focusing on psychological factors rather than on weight loss per se. Especially for the obese child, social support is the primary concern. As we have seen from …

It has been proposed that anti-obesity campaigns should pay closer attention to the microbiome. That is the collective name for the incredible number of tiny creatures that live inside us, also known as bacteria. Their intentions are good, bad, or indi …

Thanks to the magic of Reddit, a website where anybody is welcome to contribute their experiences about anything, research can dig up a trove of information about some very personal issues. For instance, what moves a child or a young teen on the obesit …

Some feel that scientific obesity research is fueled and funded by fat hatred, and that its methodology is flawed. Traditional obesity research is accused of prejudice, misinformation, and a complete absence of “fat stakeholders” in its hallowed halls. …

As Childhood Obesity News noted yesterday, where adults and teenagers are concerned, obesity does appear to be a transmissible disease. Children of course can’t help being exposed to it in their earliest nurturing environments. Even if the grownups in …

In 2007, researchers utilized data from the Framingham Heart Study to learn about the spread of obesity in both voluntary and involuntary social networks. The available information covered more than 12,000 people and was collected over a time span of m …

Can a child contract obesity like the flu or tuberculosis, through proximity to someone who has it? “The etiology of obesity is multifactorial,” said a study from the Università del Piemonte Orientale in Italy, quoted in a previous Childhood Obesity Ne …

When the Centers for Disease Control released, through the Journal of the American Medical Association, news that the obesity rate among American children in the 2- to 5-year age group had decreased by 43%, there was widespread rejoicing. Childhood Obe …

Even when a person feels that she or he woke up one morning and suddenly was motivated to make a life change, and even if the narrative is told that way, it’s probably not quite accurate. More likely, increments of change had been percolating and accum …

One of the big questions is how to get kids moving, and one answer that Childhood Obesity News has looked at is animal-assisted intervention — in other words, romping with dogs, which has succeeded in inspiring children to increase the amount of physi …

Let’s start with a couple of hackneyed jokes. Q. How many magicians does it take to change a light bulb? A. That depends on what you want to change it into. Q. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? A. None — the light bulb will c …

When actor Tom Arnold was 4 years old, his alcoholic mother left the family. As he grew a bit older, she would occasionally visit and give Tom a dollar, which in the old days would buy 10 large candy bars. He would lay out the treats on his bed and tel …

Childhood Obesity News recently looked at a study about animal-assisted intervention (AAI) which showed that a child would willingly get more physical exercise romping with a dog than playing with another child. The dog-paired kids did not report exper …

First of all, before asking how it works, what is AAI? Those initials stand for Animal-Assisted Intervention, one of the facets of green care or social farming, a new/old therapeutic modality based on the observation that many human problems can be all …

What motivates kids to do the stuff that helps them lose weight and get healthy? That depends on the kid — but some seem to respond to dog-assisted intervention. Not much research has been done yet, but the idea has a lot going for it, such as empiric …

The use of companion animals is only one aspect of green care, also known as social farming. Either term is inclusive and covers not only animal-assisted therapy, but green exercise, ecotherapy, therapeutic horticulture, and wilderness therapy. It’s al …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News went into more detail about Dr. Pretlow’s reflections on the two (so far) groups of young people who tried out the W8Loss2Go smartphone app. They started by filling out applications and motivation questionnaires, but D …

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at the pros and cons of bribing and/or rewarding kids for their weight loss efforts and/or successes. One thing to always keep in mind regarding bribery is that this is how a lot of families get in trouble in the …

An op-ed piece in The New York Times introduces a fascinating concept that grizzly bears might have to teach humans. Not that they know it themselves, but it appears that over the millennia, grizzlies have evolved some genetic adaptations as amazing as …

Childhood Obesity News has discussed the importance of the quality and quantity of sleep, especially for young children and teenagers. One study showed that young teenage boys are much more adversely affected by sleep deprivation than are girls in the …