Over the years, people have occasionally opined that the kit of actions that has allowed me to lose 155 pounds and keep it off 20 years is "a lot." 'Course, "a lot" is a relative term, but not a useful one necessarily. "A little" or "a lot" both miss the point of a desired outcome; "enough" is the only thing that matters:

If you want an outcome, are you doing enough to get it?

And how do you know if it's enough? Within a wholesome range, you can judge by results.

If you're getting the results you want, you're doing enough.

As you know, I talk about obesity and I talk about food addiction, always trying to make clear that the two aren’t analogous.

You can be obese without being a food addict, and you can be a food addict without being obese. It’s true that there is significant overlap between the populations, and it’s also true that engaging in behavior that leads to obesity can also lead to food addiction, especially if one has the genetic predisposition.

Next up in my recent cavalcade of wholly credible voices who endorse the notion of food addiction thoroughly is Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In addition to the video I posted yesterday in which pediatrician Nadine Burke speaks my language, namely “food addiction,” I have been heartened to see the concept of food addiction spread inexorably into the mainstream.

It's a little weird following Indiana TV reporter Jenny Anchondo on Twitter, because she tweets things like "Right two lanes of I-65 SB closed near Keystone Ave. due to crash http://pic.twitter.com/XncxoXMA," and "When @Fox59sjones is happy, everybody is happy. He got a 2 for 1 from the vending machine today. #Score."

This isn't my only thought on the subject, or even the primary one; I expect to pen that in the next day or two. But I see legitimate, informed citations of food addiction — as opposed to dumb tweets such as "OMG, cayenne-encrusted popcorn shrimp balls dipper in cranberry honey mustard, my new food addiction! — almost every day. Here's another one, from Nourish, a short video featuring Dr. Nadine Burke.

I gave this speech about food addiction last week at my Toastmasters club in Lexington, Mass.

The audio isn't the best, but it IS there. Also, if I were editing, I'd have eliminated the first two minutes or so, and if you want, you could skip ahead to that point. Prior to that, the speaker is my friend, author and public speaker Roberta K. Taylor.

A while ago I tweeted a Forbes article which asked whether the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics, formerly known as the American Dietetic Association, was seeking to eliminate competition by proposing dozens of state laws that would further codify who can give nutritional advice and provide stiff penalties for those who do so without the imprimatur of AND.

A study published in British Food Journal and reported by foodnavigator.com casts doubt on whether giving consumers more nutritional information will lead to healthier eating habits, and I generally agree.

Friend and reader Casey Hinds pointed me towards Casey Seidenberg's post for the Washington Post lifestyles blog "On Parenting" and asked my take on its "all food should be enjoyed" message, vis a vis children and addiction potential.