The famine in the Horn of Africa just gets bigger and bigger, with no end in sight. According to the US government, an estimated 29,000 children under the age of five have already perished, with more than 600,000 additional children so malnourished that this death toll seems like just the beginning. According to the World […]
Has Joy of Cooking Facilitated Obesity?
You too would eat stale popcorn. Did you just read the above statement and think: Stale popcorn? Not me. Under the right circumstances, you most probably would be eating this popcorn right alongside your fellow nay-sayers. This is the way of mindless eating. But before we get to the bigger issue of mindless eating, let’s […]
Are you sure it’s Healthy? The McSubway Study and other Food Tales
Who can forget Subway’s spokesman, Jared, who lost all of that weight by walking everyday to Subway in order to eat a vegetable sub for his lunch? His story revolutionized Subway’s image, making it seem like a healthy alternative to McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants. But is it really that much healthier or is […]
Weight Loss and Food Choice: 200 Food Decisions a Day
According to the Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, Brian Wansink, PhD, we make 200 different food decisions a day. No, that’s not a typo. I did mean “200.” Think of all the food choices we have: whether or not to eat that dessert, whether to have a snack before dinner, whether to […]
Healing Spaces: Can Our Hospitals Do More to Encourage Health?
Take a minute and look around (or at least visualize) your office. Come on . . . give it a try. When I look around mine, I see a space painted in calming colors, with comfy chairs and a few tasteful Zen-inspired decorations. My credentials, there to inspire trust in my abilities, are hanging on […]
A Public Health Initiative, Delivered via the Barber Shop
Public health officials are forever debating the best way to distribute health information to the public. Doctors and other medical health professionals are surely a good source, but not all people see a physician. This issue has plagued public health officials, especially those who are concerned about the gap in health services offered to Black […]
Reporting in From Donation Day
Last Sunday, I emailed to let you know that we were holding a Day of Donation. After the Treating Trauma series grew nearly two and a half times over last year, we were feeling very thankful for all the listeners throughout the world who made this success possible. And out of our gratitude we wanted […]
A Mind-Body Look at Chronic Disease
60% of annual deaths worldwide are caused by chronic disease. Let me repeat that – 60% of the people who die each year do so because of mostly preventable chronic disease. More people die every year because of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and COPD (to name just a few) than any other cause. […]
NICABM Celebrates Its Last Conference
What an exhilarating journey this has been! When we first started our conference in 1988, Mind/Body Medicine was hardly on the map. And now, it has an undisputed presence. It’s gratifying to see hospitals and universities in almost every state incorporating mind/ body medicine into their programs and curriculum. I’d like to think that NICABM […]
PTSD and ADHD – Are We Misdiagnosing?
I came across a study in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect that disturbed me. Victor Carrion, MD led a team of Stanford University researchers who looked at children living in a poor, violent neighborhood. This study built on past findings which associated worsening adult health to their childhood exposure to nine types of adverse […]