Paula Deen has diabetes. And a terrific opportunity for a "teaching moment" is being lost.

In case you're not familiar with Paula Deen -- apparently I'm the only person on the planet who hasn't seen her show -- she's a famous chef with a hit program on the Food Network,...

On January 31, the US government released the new, 2010 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

And there's not much to write home about.

The basic messages to consumers are as predictable as a high school coach's half-time pep talk. Eat less food. Control your calories. Don't...

For years I've had a love-hate relationship with Weight Watchers.

I love the fact that they've tapped into one of the most potent strategies for behavior change on the planet -- group support and accountability.

I hate the fact that their nutritional information is stuck in the dark ages....

Agave syrup (nectar) is basically high-fructose corn syrup masquerading as a health food.

Sorry. Don't kill the messenger.

It's easy to understand how agave syrup got its great reputation. Even the word "Agave" has a fine pedigree, coming from the Greek word for noble. The blue agave species- considered the...

It's starting to happen.

Slowly, a growing number of voices from establishment medicine are beginning to sound a different -- and much overdue -- theme in their writings on the health care crisis.

They're starting to talk about -- wait for it -- prevention.

What's gotten lost in all the...

A couple of interesting and unrelated articles in the popular press this week got me to thinking: What if - instead of an innocent kid- it had been the emperor from the kingdom next door shouting "that dude's got no clothes on"?

I'm guessing no one would have listened.

I have a love / hate relationship with the New York Times.

On the one hand, there's David Brooks and Gail Collins.

On the other hand, there's Jane Brody.

Jane Brody never met an establishment position she didn't unquestioningly embrace. She's continued to parrot the low-fat idiocy years past...

Sharon Begley -- who's fast becoming the best science reporter in America -- has a theory about why we pay with credit cards. Her theory also explains a lot about why we overeat.

Here's the deal. The Nordstrom lady wraps up your Jimmy Choos. If you pay with a credit...

For the last two years we've been hearing the question "Is America ready for a black president?"

Meanwhile, we've been ignoring the even more important question: "Is America ready for an intellectual president?"

Intellectuals have fallen on hard times in recent years.

It probably started back in the heyday...

As I write this, the second of the two political conventions has just come to a close. By all accounts, more people are paying attention to these gatherings than any time in recent memory- the top "attractions" of both parties easily drew in millions more viewers than the 2008 American...

There are some striking parallels between the gas crisis and the obesity crisis.

Nobody disagrees that we're "addicted to oil". The debate about what to do about it illuminates a divide that neatly parallels the divide over what to do about obesity.

Clamoring for cheaper gas and offshore drilling (which...

So the other day I'm having a perfectly lovely conversation with an exercise guru who is pretty much a household name in the world of popular diet books, the author of at least a dozen of these suckers (one of which was a NY Times best seller), a pretty smart...

Back in 1950, the husband and wife team of Eleanor and Sheldon Glueck -- both criminologists and Harvard Law School professors -- published the results of their lifelong study of juvenile delinquency ("Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency"). Now I didn't attend Harvard Law, but my father did, and here's how he summed...

Before telling you about my not-so-excellent adventure in the NY Times blogosphere, allow me to quote Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist and columnist for the NY Times, on another matter:

"Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn't scream. Hilary Clinton didn't say she was staying...

The reaction in the press to Showtime's The Secret Diary of A Call Girl is even more interesting than the program itself.

In case you missed it, what seems to have engendered the most apoplexy in the blogosphere are the following lines, spoken by the protagonist, Belle: "I wasn't...

Nor, for that matter, AIDS. Nor lupus, GERD, acne, age spots, arthritis, a balding scalp or sagging libido.

Nope. Sorry.

And lest you think I'm picking on poor MonaVie, the same is true of Xango, Mangosteen, Xocai, Tahitian Noni, and all the other ridiculously...