We’ve been going on and on about the difficulty of introducing the concept of food addiction. And it is in many ways an uphill push, but not a hopeless one. Today, we salute some people who have opened their minds enough to look through the psychologic …

Once the food addiction paradigm has been introduced, some conclusions follow, whether fair or not is yet to be decided. One conclusion is that parents who leave a child’s food addiction untreated, to the point of morbid obesity, are just as culpable a …

Everything you know is wrong, including the fact that everything you know is wrong. It used to be said that advertisers should be able to get by, spending only half as much, because 50 percent of all advertising is wasted. Only problem — nobody knew w …

The "Fuel Up To Play 60" Campaign is sponsored by Domino's Pizza, among others. (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 addic …

HFCS lobby was a sponsor of the Obesity Society 2008 scientific meeting. (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 presentat …

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 Tast …

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 …

Dr. David Kessler’s book The End of Overeating was reviewed by Shannon Brown, who notes that Kessler is the person we can thank for curbing the nicotine industry’s desire to target children in advertising, the crusade he took on as Commissioner of the …

“Of course not!” That’s a normal human response, when somebody suggests that we refuse to face the truth about something. We deny that there is a problem, including the problem of our non-recognition of the problem. That’s why they call it denial! Lisa …

Here’s an insightful piece by Adi Narayan, who habitually writes about science and medicine for Time. Called “Building a Better Label,” it is, not surprisingly, all about the rules set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the nutritional …

In a nicely balanced report for the Houston Chronicle, Kim Morgan explores the question of whether food addiction is real. She interviews a counselor who has his doubts, and a counselor who leads food addiction recovery support groups modeled after Alc …

Kevin Chappell, senior editor of Ebony magazine, who writes extensively about national politics, recently noted a new phase of the Let’s Move! campaign created by Michelle Obama to end childhood obesity. The First Lady is recruiting the help of cooking …

Did you know there’s an official category called EDNOS? That means “eating disorder not otherwise specified.” It’s a catchall term for any kind of pathological relationship with food that is neither anorexia nor bulimia. This is currently a hot topic a …

Maybe you thought that yesterday’s post, on tools for dealing with childhood obesity, was the end of covering this subject, but, no — let’s look at a few more ideas. First, a general observation. It’s useful to bear in mind that practically everyone h …

First, let’s look at one of the wrong ways to eat, as demonstrated by the dinosaurs called sauropods, who are, incidentally, now extinct. According to an uncredited article at Alpha Galileo, researchers at the University of Bonn, Germany, unraveled a c …

The root word of “morbid” means “death” in Latin, and morbid obesity interferes with the basic functions of life, like breathing or walking. Morbid obesity is generally defined as being 100 lbs. over the ideal weight, or twice as much as ideal weight, …

Just when you thought you’d heard the epitome of absurdity, along comes another crazy notion to top the last one. How about formula for toddlers that is laced with chocolate and vanilla flavorings? Of course the stuff is marketed as not only benign, bu …

by Meredee Lloyd A recent poll conducted in Minnesota found that most adults there are in denial about their true weight status. They also tend to overlook overweight and obesity in their own children. In fact, some parents in this poll were concerned …

Michelle Obama has adopted the overcoming of childhood obesity as her special project, which may turn out to be helpful, or not. We will see why in a minute. In any case, there is no doubt of the First Lady’s good intentions, nor does anyone question t …

Huffington Post blogger Jan Shepherd, who had lost 200 pounds and kept it off for nearly 10 years, talks about handling addictive behaviors: As addictive behaviors go, ones dealing with food and eating are among the most complicated and complex. I’m no …

One of the foundations of Dr. Pretlow’s philosophy is the principle that the kids themselves are the experts, and they are worth listening to. In fact, we’d better listen to them, or we will wind up spending a lot of resources on programs that are doom …

We recently commented here on an article titled “Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” by Arun Gupta, one of The Indypendent’s founding editors. Democracy Now host Amy Goodman was impressed by that essay too, and consequently invited Gupta to be on h …

In the AlterNet article titled “Poop is the most important indicator of your health,” author Anneli Rufus learns about the human intestine from Mitch Klaper, and passes the knowledge on to us. The vegan physician rhapsodizes over the exquisite function …

This profile on CNN Health turns a sociological eye upon the life of an overweight child named Claudia Garza. Actually, Garza is a grownup now; a citizen journalist who recounted her story for iReport, the section of CNN generated by the public. Then h …

Through anecdotal evidence found in their own lives and the lives of loved ones, many Americans have acknowledged that junk food is addictive. The researchers, while studying the reactions of brain and body to certain kinds of foods, are finding tangib …

A recent study published by Scripps Research Institute indicates that foods laced with fat, sugar, and salt are capable of causing addiction similar to the addiction to nicotine and cocaine. At DiversityInc, Sam Ali quotes one of the researchers, Paul …

Extreme measures are needed to deal with the childhood obesity epidemic, there’s no doubt about it, but is taxation a step that would help? For purposes of this discussion, let’s define junk food as whatever the kids find most difficult to resist — th …

Linda Spangle, R.N., is an expert on heart hunger, the emptiness that leads to emotional eating, which is pretty much the same as comfort eating. Her website, Weight Loss Café, offers several helpful articles about emotional eating. Today we’re looking …

Today we are watching a video from a class given by Dr. Elissa Epel at the University of California San Francisco, where she is a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry. She and her colleagues have been studying the ways in which stress can lea …

Here, from Huffington Post, is an illumination of one aspect of the proposed Healthy Choices Act. The article was written by Penny Lee, Executive Director of the Campaign to End Obesity. Her job is to cross-pollinate the thoughts of many powerful inter …