One way I'm trying to spread word of my book, "Fat Boy Thin Man," is by reaching out to people who have portfolios in the field, ask them to read an advance copy, and offer an opinion. This is, of course, how authors get blurbs for their back covers.

Frequent readers know that my bottom line is that food addiction is real, and that ignorance underlies its lack of acceptance in mainstream medicine and popular culture. So it's fair to say that anyone doing research on obesity (the main, but not only, result of food addiction) is a friend of mine, and that's essentially true.

The question of my headline was posed to Ed Ugel, author of "I'm With Fatty," by Bev Sklar, a writer at AOL-constituent thatsfit.com: If you only had the money for one which would you choose, a personal trainer or a nutritionis

The problem with studies, especially around food and nutrition, is that so many have contradicted other studies from over the years that no one knows what to believe.

I have almost certainly mentioned before that I typically weigh or measure the food I eat, because I have way too much data on what happens when I wing it. I'm quite sure I've said before that I don't mind high quality food, but I'm much rather have unlimited piles of mediocre food and dainty portions of the finest cuisine. That's just true, period.

So anyway: We'd been searching for quite a while to replace the two food scales we keep in our kitchen, which were of the same type and gave out within perhaps a month of each other after long years of operation.

Me and Georgie ... and Shmuley Boteach? At Huffpost, as passed on by my sister, reading from Israel.

Georgie and I have instituted 'Friday Night Dinner" at our house, which consists of a date — not romantic (well, not necessarily), but a commitment to dine together, at the dinner table, without any electronics on, at least on this one night. As often as we can, we share this repast with friends, and look forward to when Joe is part of the tradition — he's a big reason we're doing it.

In "The End of Overeating," Dr. David Kessler sketches this very useful, very accurate image: When customers step up to the McDonald's counter and pull out their $4.50 (or whatever), it's as though Uncle Sam is standing next to them, pulling out his wallet and paying another dollar (or whatever), because of the ways the federal government subsidizes corn.

I dunno about this:

Many thanks (and a little "woo-hoo!") to childhoodobesitynews.com, which referenced some of my reporting in a blog post a couple of days ago.

I hope it won't be the last time Oprah and I appear in the same sentence:

That is regrettable, but, fortunately, there are people like Oprah Winfrey and Michael Prager, who are doing their best to raise consciousness and offer the beacon of hope to fellow addicts.