If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
I haven't written about being a fat kid until now because it was too painful. Being a fat kid hurt me then. Having been a fat kid hurts me now.
This month, a new study identified a common pesticide sprayed on produce as an obesogen.
The ancient sages of India developed a tradition of personal health and growth that stood the test of time through many centuries of practice and implementation.
Parents should put pressure on the DOE to publish a complete inventory of physical education curricula, time and space allocated to physical education classes, along with the number of qualified teachers for each school.
Whether or not children and teens are overweight, the whole family can benefit from following some basic guidelines. Small changes can quickly add up to make a big difference. Start slowly -- too many changes all at once create a recipe for failure.
Policy makers, the public health community and food and media companies have a responsibility to take action to help parents raise healthy children.
Across the world there is a recognition that sports and exercise need to be a bigger part of people's lives and especially in the lives of children who are spending more time in front of computers and less in gym class.
There is no single silver bullet in fighting obesity. Government legislation, corporate responsibility, education and personal responsibility, combined with web and mobile services, can all help people eat healthy and fight obesity.
Our cultural attitudes about the use of our feet and our forks are ill-advised, but not crazy; they always made sense before. For most of human history, calories were relatively scarce and physical activity was unavoidable. Our prevailing inclinations are well-suited to that scenario.
The conversation I would like to have about obesity is about acceptance and being kind to each other. By all means, make a commitment to better health by attaining your ideal weight if you can, but leave the self- and other-loathing at the refrigerator door.
As my colleague and I illustrate in our recent paper, the trend toward larger portions coincides with the availability of calories in the U.S. food supply and the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity. So what can we do about this continued trend toward larger portions?
Please, America: Throw away the scales and stop focusing only on calories. Yes, calories are of extreme importance for weight management. But they are only of equal, or perhaps even lesser, significance than food quality.
So "okay at any size" seems to be gathering pop culture momentum. And I regret to say, I can't be entirely okay with that. It's not the size I'm not okay with -- it's the consequences.
I remember school cafeteria food -- with a certain amount of horror -- but not actually eating it. What I remember was our lunch lady cashier, who was huge and mustached and who scared the bejesus out of me. Once, as I paid for lunch, I dropped a coin into my spaghetti.
The Nation piece ultimately concludes that few if any truly significant changes have been made by the food industry as a result of Ms. Obama's program. But the fact that Ms. Obama can't (or won't) wage war with Big Food has never surprised me.
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