I used to skewer the brazen flaks at the Center for Consumer Freedom a lot more than I do now — or perhaps I just think that's true because of all the times I feel moved to expose their flabby logic, and then allow my cooler self to prevail. How many times can I link to an organ I want to disappear before I realize I'm making them more visible? Read more »

An aphorism states that one definition of insanity is endlessly repeating a behavior and expecting the outcome, this time, to change.

I am about to prove, again, that I remain, by that definition, completely bonkers. Read more »

As one of life’s necessities, food has become intertwined with practically every human emotion: We eat to celebrate, we eat to share tradition and family ties, we eat when we’re happy, we eat when we’re sad, we eat when we’re bored.

Nothing about this is wrong. But especially in a nation where 2 out of 3 American adults are obese or overweight, it’s important to remember food’s first role, to nourish and sustain, and if we need to make compromises, they must come from the emotional meanings before we toss aside our health. Read more »

More notes from the inaugural “Your Weight Matters” conference last weekend in Dallas...

The “Center for Consumer Freedom,” the Big Food-funded mouthpiece whose falsehoods begin with its name, cites the “latest study” when it serves its purposes, and mocks it the rest of the time. Sometimes this happens in back-to-back posts. They deserve the scorn of every thinking person on earth. But anyway. Read more »

I was talking politically with someone recently who advised me to back off on my desires and especially my expectations of what policies people will go for, and that raises a pretty fundamental question of advocacy.

Is it better to ask for what you want, or for what you think you can get?

I’m sure community and issue organizers have explored the question exhaustively. that they have concluded that no answer is always correct, and that they know when to zig and when to zag.

But I ain’t them. Read more »

It's hard to know which is more breathtaking about the Center for Consumer Freedom, its intellectual dishonesty or its harebrained reasoning. Either way, the come across so often as devoted idiots.

Yes, that makes me the chronicler of idiots, which I hope won't be my epitaph. But someone has to call out their crap, lest it be allowed to stand as fair, rational, logical discourse. Read more »

It’s wishful thinking to imagine that attacking only one of the many causes of obesity will solve a complex problem.

What's this? The Center for Consumer Freedom, a front for Big Food, saying something I can agree with, even if it probably wishes it could have this one back? Read more »

Just about every time I refer to the Center for Consumer Freedom, I feel the need to acknowledge that yes, I'm doing it again — giving attention to the cynical, purchased slants of a collection of people who identify themselves as uncredible by their very name. They call themselves a consumer group — which is true and a lie. Yes — who isn't a consumer? But no, a group that is funded by industry but implies that it is made up customers should not be heeded. Read more »

If anyone out there is proposing a tax on sugary sodas, you can be sure the Center for Consumer Freedom will be nearby, trying to distract from any real discussion.

With this post, it returns to Philadelphia, where the mayor is again proposing a soda tax, even after beverage industry lobbyists pledged to give $10 million to the city's Children's Hospital, in the middle of a debate on a soda tax, so it could expand obesity-prevention efforts. Any reasonable person would consider that civic bribery, but let's skip over that right now. Read more »

Recent headline on the Center for Consumer Freedom's blog: "News Flash: Parents Can Help Kids Overcome Obesity"

Well, duh — yet another foolish post from the bought-and-paid-for shill of the restaurant and food products industry that is wrong, even when it's right.

Of course parents can help kids overcome obesity! But they lacerate logic with their implication that, therefore, no other steps to address a grave and growing problem are necessary or warranted. Read more »