Oprah Winfrey’s Very Public Food Addiction Struggle
Obesity can be bad enough, but obesity in front of millions of people, whose eyes are glued to every ounce you gain, that’s a real recipe for distress. The struggle against food addiction is difficult for anyone. For a woman who is not only a celebrity but an icon, a virtual mentor, a role model, […]
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” […]
Solutions: Families and Communities
Health writer Amanda Gardner recently wrote about a report completed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health. As Gardner reminds us in Business Week, Obesity is one of the biggest public health crises in the country. Rising rates of obesity over past decades is one of the major factors behind […]
Paula Goodyer and the Taste of Addiction
Paula Goodyer writes about health for The Sydney Morning Herald and Cleo Magazine, among others, and has published three books. She is a recipient of the Walkley award, the Australian journalistic-excellence equivalent of the Pulitzer. In her “The Taste of Addiction” article, Goodyer considers the ideas of Dr. David Kessler, who is highly suspicious of […]
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 […]
High-Fructose Corn Syrup = Bad News
Mark Morford’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle takes on several weight- and food-related topics, such as the effect of obesity on the U.S. military, freshness expiration dates, and the unholy alliance between a certain well-known anti-cancer fundraising organization and a certain prominent fast-food chain. (This same chain, incidentally, gives you something to put on […]
Teens Get Their Own Diet Guide
Ever since Barbara Schroeder and Carrie Wiatt first introduced The Diet for Teenagers Only, the book has gained quite a following among the young people it addresses. It has earned the reputation of being a safe and inspirational authority that supplies good information, and it does it in a fun way. The authors stress the […]
Healthy Choices Act Introduced by Lawmakers
The “Healthy Choices Act” was introduced last week by the U.S. Rep. Ron Kind and three other Congressional co-sponsors, journalist Karlene Lukovitz tells us via MediaPost. This bill hopes to address the nation’s obesity epidemic in a thorough and hopefully positive way. The chairman of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Rick Wolford, described the bill with […]