Tag: research

In his paper written for the journal Eating Disorders, Dr. Pretlow stated that today’s youth appear to be “victims of boredom, stress, and depression in an addictive, comfort food environment” and added: Accordingly, a perfect storm may be contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic: 1) cheap, widely available, highly pleasurable foods, 2) increased stress in children, and 3) comfort eating, leading to dependence (addiction). Recently, three British researchers (Claire V. Farrow, Emma Haycraft, and Jackie M. Blissett) set out to understand more completely the development of emotional eating in young children. Specifically, they wanted to learn “whether parental use of overly controlling feeding practices at 3–5 years of age predicts a greater subsequent tendency for children to eat under conditions of mild stress at ages 5–

In the struggle to reverse the childhood obesity trend, one of the most pervasive tropes about junk food is to “tax it like tobacco.” In 2008, at the National Childhood Obesity Congress, Dr. Pretlow met Steven K. Galson, who was at the time the acting U.S. Surgeon General. They talked about the feasibility of taxing junk food, and the official felt that neither consumers nor food companies would allow it to happen. The anti-tobacco movement had, and has, unavoidable political implications. Nicotine was proven to be habit-forming, and many of the 400-odd ingredients of cigarettes were shown to be carcinogenic. The public learned that the industry had been covering up these guilty truths. Since there are laws around selling addictive drugs, and the intentional