Childhood Obesity: More Things to Worry About
We know that kids in America and all over the world are miserable about their excess body weight. We know that obesity in the young can lead to the early onset of severe medical conditions that used to mainly afflict adults. We know that, for many people, food addiction is as real and as dangerous as […]
Do Bad Genes Cause Big Jeans?
In the area of childhood obesity, does genetic research lead to a light at the end of the tunnel, or a dead end? Is the whole genetic thing just a cop-out for people who are in denial about their food addiction? A couple of years ago, Maggie Fox of Reuters reported on the activities of […]
George Ball: “Nothing to Lose But Our Waistlines”
Many people realize that childhood obesity is a serious and growing problem, and many even ask, “But what can we do about it?” For parents, a great, big, wonderful answer is: Grow veggies! We’re looking today at a recent opinion piece in the The Wall Street Journal, written by George Ball, who urges us to make […]
Childhood Obesity and Other News for School Nurses
It’s great to be an employed professional, out in the world of work, and it’s even greater to have a life to go home to. But in between all that, how do you keep up with developments in your field? If you’re busy looking after the needs of a school full of kids, not to […]
Women Eat Food, Pray to God, Love
It’s a trick title, of course, made from the two of 2010’s enormous-selling nonfiction books, as announced by Nielsen BookScan just the other day. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love was #2 (and also #4 in a different version, the “movie tie-in trade paperback”). Geneen Roth’s Women Food and God came in at #3. What’s up […]
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 […]
Obesity Prediction Not So Ridiculous, Thanks to Food Corporations
Justin Stoneman recently published an essay titled “America: A Big, Fat, Stupid Nation,” in which he expressed astonishment at what he characterizes as the ridiculous prediction that by the year 2020, three out of four Americans will be overweight or obese. Where did the number come from? Stoneman got this figure from the Organization for […]
Childhood Obesity and Minority Groups
Full disclosure: John Foreyt, Ph.D., wrote the Foreword to Overweight: What Kids Say, and he’s a friend. In fact, so good a friend that in the Acknowledgements section of the book, Dr. Pretlow says, This book wouldn’t have happened were it not for the inspiration and encouragement of Dr. John Foreyt and his conviction that […]
The Weight of Secrets and Shame
The following is a guest post by Dr. David L. Katz, director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center. The article was originally published on Prevention.com, and has been modified and updated for Childhood Obesity News. About a year ago I appeared on MARTHA: The Martha Stewart Show to talk about — what else — living […]
Childhood Obesity Funding and Independence
Dr. Pretlow’s December 20 post, “Childhood Obesity Science Conflicts of Interest,” set off an interesting chain of reactions. It expressed concern about the objectivity and impartiality of the new magazine, Childhood Obesity, which is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. (The link is to where an issue of the magazine can be sampled for free.) How objective […]