They Said It, We Believed It — Teens and Food Addiction
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. Just for grins, we plugged the word “addict” into the search box, […]
Obesity Tales: Walk a Mile in My 46"-Waist Track Pants
Let’s check in with some people who have experienced childhood obesity or observed it from a nearby vantage point. Jane Shure is a psychotherapist specializing in eating disorders and the transformation of shame. She trains healthcare professionals and gives workshops in making peace with food and body image, and she’s a former fat kid. In […]
Television Advertising and Childhood Obesity, Part 4
Nothing can make you feel as smart as a page full of numerical trivia. That’s why Harper’s Index has so many fans among the magazine’s readers. This information comes from an old clipping. Way back in 1983, the average child in America had been tempted by only $2.98 worth of advertising in a year. Next, […]
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 […]
Resistance to the Food Addiction Paradigm, Part 2
Back in May, when Oprah Winfrey publicly announced her food addiction, William Anderson took note. He specializes in helping people shed their extra pounds, and his book, The Anderson Method, deals with the use of psychotherapeutic techniques to achieve permanent weight loss. Sustainability is what it’s all about. Anderson himself has lost 140 pounds, and […]
Comfort Eating May Be Hard-Wired
Journalist Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent for the Telegraph, has been talking with some Israeli research scientists who believe they have found an “anxiety gene” in the course of research done at the Weizmann Institute. It appears that this gene is also responsible for the phenomenon known as comfort eating. This gene controls a “stress switch” […]
Medical Science and Food Addiction – Part 2
(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 addiction as a cause of the obesity epidemic. This post presents how the evidence for food addiction is being downplayed. Anecdotal Data I recently talked with Robert […]
Medical Science and Food Addiction
(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 presentation at the European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG) scientific meeting in Dublin, Ireland, in which I proposed that comfort eating and resulting addiction to highly pleasurable foods […]
Using the Psychological Food Dependence-Addiction Lens
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 differentiates foods according to their nutritional value, in order to help kids […]
Kid, Parent, or Professional – Are You in Denial?
“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 Claudia Briggs asks us the question, “Is denial blocking your progress?” Briggs […]