Snacks and Labels, Junk and Nature
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 kind of natural, healthy credentials we’re talking about.) According to Ann Mukherjee, the chief marketing officer, there will […]
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 […]
“Jelly and the Donuts” Vs. Childhood Obesity
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 to be treated like any other addiction. Many young people […]
The Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm, Part 6
In America, we are so immersed in food, it’s ridiculous. Sure, not everybody can afford it, but it’s out there. Everywhere we turn — in the house, in the school, in the church, in the movie theater — food is staring us in the face. What Dr. Pretlow wants to know is, How will we make the […]
The Childhood Obesity Perfect Storm
“Perfect storm” is a term that has been around since at least the 1930s. A perfect storm is what happens when a number of powerful factors concur in such a way that a disastrous or critical situation is created. No single one of them alone would have had such a destructive effect, but the synergy […]
Pamela Peeke on Food Addiction
Pamela Peeke, M.D., is one of America’s few physicians who have completed training in nutrition science. She sees life as a journey, and her practice is a way of supporting people in the transformations they experience and cause along that journey. Peeke also tells us that food addiction is real, and explains a rat study […]
All Jacked Up, the Junk Food Documentary
Here’s an irresistible invitation from Mike Adams, a fervent supporter of the documentary film All Jacked Up: Your act of watching this film is, all by itself, an act of passionate protest against the corporations that would love nothing more than to turn you into a brain-dead, disease-managed feeding machine that lives an entire lifetime […]
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 […]