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.

I haven't checked it out yet, but I'm very interested in Steven McFadden's "The Call of the Land," in which he profiles members of a group he calls Millennial Agrarians, who are working to create a secure and sustainable food system.

Been meaning to get to this for a while; the video above was released by the TED organization in May. It is of Harvard professor Nicholas Christakis, speaking about the value of connection and social networks — the actual kind, as opposed to merely the virtual kind.

What caught my interest is the first example of his research, obesity. He says his research showed that if your friends are obese, your chance of being obese is 45 percent higher.

Just want to give a nod to Crop To Cuisine,\ which I only recently became aware of. A good site for food news, such as this apparent example of fast-food rage. 

For someone turning to the whole food, whole earth, locavore lifestyle, I still have some glaring "opportunities for growth," which is to say practices that could be a lot truer to my talk. (I've also heard those expressed as AFGOs: "another f'ing growth opportunity.") I know that, like all of us, I'm a work in progress, but still, I'm reminded of the quite irreverent-but-true epithet my college buds used to toss: "Let's see you do it, then spout off."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that practically all of Ben and Jerry's 53 flavors have processed substances in them, which undercuts the brand's claim to the word "natural" on its labels. Here's more detail from Crop to Cuisine:

I misunderstood when I heard about this story, or the person telling me about it did. It speaks of a diet, and of course that usually means a temporary change in food regimen, but in this case, the reference to diet is about clothing.

The way it was explained to me, people who'd lost weight had chosen to stick with six garments only until their weight had stabilized, so that they didn't end up with a range of sizes for the long run.

I see now that this makes no sense, but what it recalled for me were the days when I was dropping from 365 to about 200, where I remain today 20 years later. Except for a couple of size 64 sweatpants that I bought (slightly oversized for what I needed) — while I was in rehab, I got rid of every stitch I owned, and eventually disposed of everything I'd bought to replace it on the way down, because that stuff no longer fit, either.

A study at the University of Pittsburgh found evidence of binge eating in youngsters, leading its authors to argue that the condition should be accounted for in weight-management programs designed for severely overweight kids.

"Children in the Binge Eating Group were younger and had more depressive, anxiety, and eating-disorder symptoms, and lower self-esteem," the study found.

The Coolidge Corner Theatre continues its Green Screens film series at 7 Thursday night with a one-night only presentation of "Ingredients," a documentary that explores the local food movement.

Tickets are $9.75, but $6.75 for seniors and free to Coolidge Corner Theatre members. You can get them at coolidge.org or at the Coolidge box office, 290 Harvard St., Brookline. You get a free reusable bag with admission (because you don't have enough of them already). Still, a freebie is still a freebie.