Teen Obesity and Faze Magazine
Of course, an inestimable amount of totally informal communication between teenagers goes on all over the electronic universe. Surprisingly, some have not abandoned the conventions of print publications, even if their publications only exist online. The content, generated by teens, is vetted, organized, and structured into traditional magazine format. Open Directory offers a list of […]
Social Networking and Obesity, Part 1
The overall mission of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is to explore the impact of the Internet on children, families, and communities. Last month, they released the report “Social networking sites and our lives.” The 85-page PDF file is subtitled, “How people’s trust, personal relationships, and civic and political involvement are connected […]
Publication in Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention
A while back, we mentioned that Dr. Pretlow’s latest paper was due to be published by Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. The future has become the present, and the document is now online. (The print version of Volume 19 #4, July/Aug/Sept. 2011 will be available in about a month.) Dr. Pretlow is […]
Prenatal Measures to Prevent Childhood Obesity
In advanced cases of overweight, up to and including morbid obesity, in teenagers and adults, the answer becomes clear. Many, many people are addicted to food in the same way an alcoholic or cocaine addict is hooked. They can only help themselves through interventions that adhere closely to the classical 12-step program, especially effective in […]
Things Parents Can Do at Home
There are plenty of things parents can stop doing. Obesity is bad enough; a kid doesn’t need nagging too. But today, we’re talking about things that parents can actively do. Aracelly Clouse is a personal fitness trainer in California, who also writes about such specialized topics as places for cheap family outings in her area, […]
Comfort Eating and Regular People
The psychological food dependence-addiction lens is a new and still somewhat unpopular paradigm, because it has to do with addiction to food as the cause of much obesity. Looking through that lens, we see that while legislative measures are useful, what really needs to be addressed is the tendency of people to become addicted, at […]
Comfort Eating and Carrie Fisher
Yesterday we discussed the difficulty, for parents and health professionals concerned about childhood obesity, in having a positive effect, or making any impact at all, on the production, advertising, or availability of junk food. Call it less-than-optimal food, call it pseudo-food, or call it ingestible matter that does the body more harm than good. Especially, […]
Stress-Eating and Recession Obesity
You know a writer is onto something when a piece she wrote almost two years ago is even more true than on the day it was first published. Georgia Lund, a contributor to the Yahoo! Network, made a few observations about the relationship between the murky fiscal environment we have been immersed in and the […]
More on the Early Adopters of the Food Addiction Paradigm
Food addiction is misunderstood but real, says Cheryl Williams, in a piece called “Food Addiction: Similarities and Differences to Drug and Alcohol Addiction.” As so many others have noted, one of the differences is that we need food to live, but not drugs or alcohol. (Dr. Pretlow always points out another difference that is especially […]
Fast Food, Hospitals, and Cravings
Fast food and hospitals are the two concepts that should not be found together in the same sentence. And yet, their relationship grows cozier all the time. It was with some dismay that Dr. Pretlow recently noticed a TV commercial for the Blizzard Children’s Miracle Network. Actually, the word that came to mind was “disgusted.” […]