Ordinarily I’d just tweet this ‘cause I don’t have much to add to it, but I wanted to highlight the bankruptcy of this in a headline.

One of the Canadian government’s “partners” for an anti-diabetes campaign is the Tim Hortons donut empire. As Dr. Yoni Freedhoff said in his headline, no, this is "not The Onion."

A brief post on a topic I may return to: None of the writers I follow on blogs and other social media — the ones who understand the experience of obesity in the way that I do (Jane Cartelli and Zoe Harcombe come to mind) — think the AMA was right to label obesity as a disease.

Note: This is an edited version of a Google Hangouts chat Andy and I had last week.

Another off-topic post, but what the heck — I own this blog! I haven’t seen anything about this, and considering it minorly newsworthy: Google Hangouts doesn’t work very well!

As you know if you’ve visited here before, I’m doing a series of Hangout interviews, and the first three, only one of them worked.

I’m way too busy to write this post, which is completely off topic for me, and if I were more disciplined, I wouldn’t expend the time. But this morning, we had a slightly scary visitation from the words of the Lord.

Sorta. Maybe. Probably not. And yet.

Joe and I were dressing for the day when we started hearing a voice, completely unrecognized and unbidden. It hit us both this way: Is that a noise?

What’s that noise?

Is it someone talking?

Where’s it coming from?

Is it in the bathroom? But no one’s in the bathroom.

So now obesity is a disease, huh? As I first wrote last July (“Obesity isn’t a disease, but it still sucks”), I can’t say I agree.

Yes, my declaration carries substantially less weight than the American Medical Association’s, because, you know, they’re the big market movers in the disease business. But that’s how it strikes me.

Note: Free video offer at end of interview

Welcome to another installment of "10 Words or Less," in which I ask brief questions of interesting people and ask for brief responses in return. Today's participant is medical director of Renascent Treatment Group in Toronto; we participated in a discussion about food addiction at the Commonwealth Club of California. The 10-words-or-less thing is an ethic, not a limit, so please, no counting. It's not so easy, and besides, let's see you do it.

Name Vera Tarman
Residence Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Family circumstance “Married, with four pets.”
Occupation Physician
Born when and where? “1957, in Germany.”
Anything notable about the circumstances? “For the first three years of my life, I lived in a convent for children.”
A formative event from childhood “My mother died when I was 14.”
Someone who has influenced your path in life, outside family “An aunt named Inge, who was like a mother to me. She was a nurse with a strong work ethic, and was always very encouraging of me.”

I'll be presenting an edited-text version of this on the blog next week, but for video fans, here's our entire conversation on the Bellatti-cofounded Dietitians for Professional Integrity, the Bellatti-bedeviled Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and his quest for truth.

I wrote a couple years ago about AmpleHarvest.org, which had the simple idea of making local food pantries more visible to the thousands of local growers who plant too much and can't use all their produce at harvest time.

Growers, many of the backyard variety, can go to the site, plug in their zip code, and see all the food pantries around them that accept fresh food. Well, all such pantries that are listed on the site, anyway.

Welcome to another installment of “10 Words or Less,” in which I ask interesting people for brief answers to brief questions. Today’s participant is one of the world’s most accomplished researchers in food and addiction. Remember, please: No counting! “10 words” is about attitude, not addition, and besides, let’s see you do it. 

Name Nicole Avena, Ph.D.
Family status Lives in New Jersey, married, one child
Occupation Assistant Professor at University of Florida, Department of Psychiatry, and Visiting Research Associate at Princeton University, studying neuroscience, appetite, and addiction
Born when, where Point Pleasant, N.J., Oct 5, 1978
A formative event from your childhood “I was in a spelling competition in elementary school and that engendered a fondness for academic reward.”
Where’d you place? “I came in 2d.”
First paying job“Lifeguard at a yacht club.”
Something you took from that job “Aside from a nice tan each summer, I had the chance to teach several children to swim, and that taught me patience and how to negotiate.”
Someone outside your family who influenced you particularly “Bart Hoebel, who was a professor at Princeton and one of my mentors.”