Publication in Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention

Eating Disorders

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 […]

Developments at Childhood Obesity, the Journal

Book shelves

The magazine Childhood Obesity used to be known as Obesity and Weight Management, until its focus became more defined. It seems to be getting off to a faltering start. After an announced debut date of June 2010, the first issue did not appear until September of that year. It was meant to be a bimonthly, […]

Slate Magazine, Journalistic Activism, and Childhood Obesity

Punk-1

There is a type of journalism that discourages the public from thinking about certain things. In a print newspaper, a sensitive piece of news can be buried in the third or fourth section. If an announcement might provoke a lot of dissent, it can be held until the next giant headline-grabbing emergency is distracting everyone’s […]

Taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Part 1

Wall of Soda

Every time the idea of a tax on soda pop is mentioned, the debate grows lively and centers around some basic issues: Why pick on soda? Will people stand for it? Will food corporations put up with it? Has a soda tax actually been shown to reduce childhood obesity? The soda tax movement received a […]

Slate Magazine’s Childhood Obesity Crowdsourcing Project

Piazza San Stefano

The online magazine Slate asked its readers for their best ideas about how to shrink childhood obesity. A dozen submissions were picked, reporter Christy Harrison tells us, half of them by the readers themselves. Six more were chosen by a panel of judges, all leaders in the field. Among the judges were medical doctors Amy […]

Food Addiction and Childhood Obesity: Now What Do We Do?

(Part Two of a Two-Part Post — View Part One) The first part of this post had to do with the fact that the “healthy eating and exercise” approach for ending the childhood obesity epidemic just isn’t working. Compelling new evidence now points to actual addiction to highly-pleasurable comfort foods, like junk food and fast […]

Ending Childhood Obesity Through Healthy Eating & Exercise?

I recently witnessed two teenagers in a group, one advising the other how to lose weight. The first teen glibly proclaimed, All you gotta do is eat healthy and exercise! Whereupon, the second teen indignantly retorted, That is sooo not it!!! I know what to eat, I just can’t resist bad food!! And exercise is, […]

Media Reactions to Yale Food Addiction Study

Burger King Cup Cake Sundae Shake

We talked last time about the validation given by the recent Yale study, to the idea that food addiction is a reality for some people. Of course, the story was immediately picked up and expanded on by numerous other media, all with their own particular slants. For basic information about how the study was conducted, […]

It’s Official: Food Addiction Is Real

Saint Lucia Day 4

Well, better late than never! Dr. Robert A. Pretlow, numerous other medical professionals, and very many obese people (whose experiences were previously dismissed as “anecdotal evidence” and “non-validated data”) have been saying for years that food addiction is as real as any other officially identified addiction. It is a problem most appropriately viewed through the […]

The Weight of Secrets and Shame

Dr. David L. Katz

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 […]