I met up with a few new comrades at the Promising Practices in Food Addiction Recovery conference last weekend in Houston. One of them is Meredith Terpeluk, who works with problem eaters in South Bend, Ind. I expect I'll refer to her at least occasionally, by virture of her blog at reachcorewellness.wordpress.com.

The Department of Defense is considering either supplementing or fortifying the rations of all active service personnel with EPA and DHA omega 3 fatty acids to enhance stress resilience and general wellness. [They would expect to] improve military performance, cut hospital bills and speed recovery from traumatic brain injuries.

 

This comes from nutraingredients-usa.com, which views this as a business story; its lead paragraph talks about a huge market opening for those substances if the military follows through.  And, of course, it is; nutrition is inextricably linked to the marketplace, which is our way of life but not a way to safe way to life.

Unless this is your first visit here, you know that I am convinced that food addiction exists, and that I reserve high dudgeon for the medical establishment for not understanding what I know to be true. (Feel free to make your own judgments about the know-it-all texture of that; I’m not unaware of them.)

They’ve recognized substance use disorders involving tobacco, alcohol, amphetamines, and myriad other chemical dependencies. But not food, not yet.

Joan Ifland, principal organizer of the Promising Practices in Food Addiction conference last weekend in Houston, shared some back-of-the-envelope figuring, and suggested that overeating is responsible for 7 percent of the economy. It went like this:

I fear no contradiction when I say that if you don’t act insanely around food, then you know someone who does. That shouldn’t even stir contention in a nation where 2 of every 3 adults — 145 million of us — are considered overweight (defined as a body/mass index of between 25 and 30) or obese (a BMI over 30).

Here’s a window on that insanity, cited by Diane Rohrbach of Seattle, program director of Food Addiction Recovery Education, during her presentation at the Promising Practices in Food Addiction conference last weekend in Houston: The Cookie Diet. This is an actual product.

New York is contemplating a penny-per-ounce tax on sugared drinks. Here's how New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg justified his support to a state Senate committee:

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Society, reviewing CDC figures, says that obesity has leveled off. Though it's based on data I accept as credible, I do have to say that what I see at the mall, at a ballgame, or at the airport, I still see a lot of overweight people. Maybe I'm just looking for them, based on my sensitivities.

But what made me want to comment is this:

The second annual conference on "Promising Practices in Food Addiction Recovery" will be at the end of the month in Houston. The focus this year will be on assessment — refining how the standards measures of addiction can be recognized in problem eaters.

Sponsors include Kay Sheppard, Renaissance Nutrition Center, Turning Point of Tampa, Shades of Hope Treatment Center of Texas, Milestones Eating Disorders Program of Miami, and ACORN Food Dependency Recovery Services of Sarasota. Essentially, these are the, uh, heavyweights of food addiction treatment.

Yeah, OK, so I've been MIA forever, and probably, that's likely to continue. Georgie's family leave ends today, and I'll be finally taking on the full reality of what I set out to do when I left the Globe almost three years ago — be the full-time caregiver for my child. (His name is Joe; you can view photos here if you want.)

More than a hundred hardy people huddled together for warmth and solidarity in a frigid downtown Boston Friday night to declare their support for a strong and binding climate agreement, whose prospects are being discussed these days in Copenhagen.