Prediction for 2011: Food Addiction Will Still Exist
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 such a thing as food addiction, and the sooner we […]
The Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm, Part 3
We have talked about the Perfect Storm concept before. This is what happens when a whole lot of conditions converge to cause a large problem. Probably no single one of them alone would have done it. But when they gang up and come at us all at once, we’re toast. The childhood obesity epidemic seems […]
Eat for Success, Part 5
Rule #1: Geography is destiny, so do not live near fast food outlets. From the University of Leeds, in Northern England, comes scientific confirmation that childhood obesity is more likely to be found in kids who live near fast food restaurants, or attend school near them, or both. Media liaison Paula Gould recently announced the […]
The Food Addiction Paradigm and Resistance
“My ‘AHA’ Moment” is a short and to-the-point message written by an overweight blogger named Rebecca, who says, I finally realized that even if others can eat junk foods, foods high in the (bad) fats and carbs and drink coffee and colas, I just cannot do it… This sounds familiar, because it is the same […]
A Psychological Problem, Not a Nutritional Problem
“Will Marriage Make You Fat?” is the question asked by Cynthia Ramnarace in an article that follows the histories of three different couples. She got interested in the emotional basis of obesity because of something she read: A 2008 study in the journal Obesity showed that couples that lived together more than two years — […]
The Medical Science and Food Addiction Barrier
Today, the focus is on a piece written by forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, Ph.D. What, you may ask, does forensic psychology have to do with the childhood obesity epidemic? Well, it turns out that the upper levels of all the professions have certain characteristics in common, and this applies to the medical establishment and everybody […]
Why Parents Don't Want to Hear About Food Addiction, Part 4
Ever since Freud, parents just can’t seem to catch a break. Every time we turn around, somebody finds another reason to blame us for yet another deficiency in our children. Like in the picture here, why is this rather chunky boy wearing a necklace of doughnuts? However, we can’t prevent or find out about a lot […]
Embrace Your Hunger
We have mentioned Oprah Winfrey‘s chagrin when she had been told by her doctor that she would need to “embrace hunger.” Many of us would be better off learning to feel pleasant anticipation of a good meal rather than a craving for junk food. We could experience for ourselves the truth in the old saying, […]
Resistance to the Food Addiction Paradigm, Part 1
One of the arguments against accepting the idea that people can be addicted to food is that food is a biological necessity and we can’t live without it. In the “Comments” section of a previous post, Dr. Pretlow says, Granted, it’s ‘biological’ for humans to seek out food, as well as pleasurable stimuli. But what’s […]
The Health Profession and Food Addiction, Part 2
As we have noted before, not every MD in history has recoiled from the food addiction paradigm. A few shining lights have gone on record, and risked being thought of as cranks, or worse. Sobriety coach Cynthia Perkins is the author of Get Sober Stay Sober: The Truth About Alcoholism. With 21 years of “uninterrupted […]