For all the time that humans have been afoot, we have been adjusting to “the environment,” very often on the fly, very often in the face of peril. So it’s risible that a study just released by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery asked respondents to opine on the cause of obesity: personal choice or environment and genetics.

In my BNI chapter, I find that before I can successfully make the case that fellow members should refer me as a wellbeing coach, I have to make the case that wellbeing coaching is worthwhile in itself.

I love this! Recently I interviewed Dr. Christopher Ochner, a prominent obesity researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Typically, I ask brief open-ended questions, and print the replies, and that’s it.

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

Before Friday morning’s presentation at the BEDA national conference by Marian Tanofsky-Kraff, I would have assumed that binge eating in children is an excellent predictor of developing binge-eating disorder and other conditions.

I heartily recommend your reading this story from The Salt, NPR's food blog, which tells about NuSI, a 38-year-old billionaire's research initiative on obesity and nutrition.

The money lines:

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.

It is passe, if not cliche-ish, to say that MRI images of the brain show similar activity for some people shown food images compared with cocaine addicts shown coke images.

But a study at Dartmouth College — published April 18 in The Journal of Neuroscience — goes a step further, using images from the brain’s rewards center to predict who is likely to gain weight six months hence.

Not only that, but researchers used the same technique to predict sexual desire.

In April 2009, I attended an invitation-only conference on obesity in Bainbridge Island, Wash., and it was one of the best strokes of good fortune I’ve yet encountered, not only for the knowledge that was shared but for the relationships I got to form.

I mentioned after my appearance at the Commonwealth Club of California a couple of weeks ago that a podcast would result, and that I would mention when it was available. Well, it is, which I learned when someone who'd listened to it tweeted to me about it.

My opinion is that anyone would be best served by listening to the whole recording. Please do not overlook that point when I say the following: