I thought I was done blogging about my experiences at the Binge Eating Disorder Association's national conference, but a line uttered during the panel I participated in keeps clanging around in my head:

"When I hit 700 pounds, my health started to go down hill."

It was said by Marybeth Quist, who shared her experience as a bariatric surgery survivor on the panel. Even in a sharply sad story where even the ups had downs, that statement of hers has just kept coming back.

I’ve been following Dr. Yoni Freedhoff on Twitter for some time, and appreciate his espousal — from inside the medicine tent — of many of the same principles for health vis a vis obesity that I hold. Recently, I added an RSS feed of his blog to my reader, and I’ve been working through the backlog.

It’s unfortunate that my first impulse to share his ideas  is over what I regard as a clunker.

A gaggle of eating disorder groups put out a release this week praising Michelle Obama for comments she made about weight during a Google Hangout, emphasizing healthy lifestyle and avoiding any talk about weight with her daughters.

I, of course, talk about weight all the time. Few topics, including this one, are black and white, but I acknowledge the gulf.

Few things are more obvious here at Sustainably than that my unalterable belief that food addiction exists. Duh.

I was listening to Ira Flatow interview Rob Lustig on a Science Friday podcast when I heard Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC Berkeley, make a really good point.

Big Food spinmeisters subvert the libertarian viewpoint to “keep Big Brother from telling me what to eat” as a way to avoid any fetter on its ability to sell its products, when Big Food is already telling us what to eat!

There are a couple of websites I've been wanting to point out. The first one is foodidentitytheft.com, for which I feel considerable sympathy and collegiality, even if I am not in accord with one of their principle current crusades.

A finding whose significance I missed during Dr. Timothy Brewerton’s presentation last Friday morning at the Binge Eating Disorder Association’s national conference: The tremendous confluence in men of substance-use disorders, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to Brewerton, 88 percent of men of who exhibit eating disorders and PTSD also exhibit other substance-use disorders. This compares with about 35 percent of women, and is dramatically higher for rates of PTSD or eating disorders alone.

So is weight loss an important measure of whether eating-disorder treatment is working? Even getting past the eating-disorder corners that don’t address overweight, the answer is apparently not.

During her opening remarks at the Binge Eating Disorder Association national conference last Friday, founder Chevese Turner argued for a definition of recovery that doesn’t include it. Later, during a researchers’ panel, Denise Wilfley of the Washington University School of Medicine, chimed in, saying that “if someone is having a stable weight, that’s a very important outcome.”

It’s too facile to call it political correctness, but I noted a strong effort by some speakers at the Binge Eating Disorder Association’s national conference last weekend to say the right thing. Here are some examples:

* ”There’s no such thing as junk food.” I’m not sure whose ox is gored by saying otherwise! My goodness, junk food not only exists, we celebrate it! It’s such an example of shared insanity. We would never eat actual junk, but we eat junk food and consider it a pleasure (guilty or otherwise).

Perhaps it’s only self-flattery when I say that one of the ways in which I contribute most to discourse is my honesty. Believe me, there’s enough I don’t disclose, but I believe in the power of disclosure to move myself and others forward, even when I don’t look great in the process.

I’m going to test that again in this post.

As a result of attending the Binge Eating Disorder Association’s national conference over the weekend in Bethesda, Md., I’m revisiting some of my biases, which include: