Jane Connell, MS, RD, Nutrition Coach:   Earlier in my career as a dietitian, I thought it would be really exciting if I could develop a magic pill which would assist my clients in losing weight. It would be so quick! And so easy! So well suited - a perfect fit - for our instant-gratification society. Just for fun, let us play out the magic pill scenario. What might that look like for you? You could eat whatever you want, however much you wished, whenever. You could do (or not do)... [More]

Aimee Schiefelbein, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:   "I think I want to quit but my parents and all of my friends smoke. I just don't know how I am going to do it because they won't quit." As a Quit Coach, this is something I hear often from teenagers. Furthermore, the teen I am talking with usually has ambivalence about quitting in the first place, as many don't relate to the long-term health impact or have incentive to quit in the first place. A recent study by the University of ... [More]

Jason Kalivas, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:   A participant asked me recently how long it takes being quit before there are no more cravings for nicotine, at all, ever. "It's different for everyone," I said. "Some people never miss it; for some people it takes years; and for some those cravings never go away, but just become manageable." I'd learned it in Free & Clear University, while training to be a Quit Coach. I'd heard it from participants on the phone. I know that it's a true ans... [More]

Ryan Crawford, Quit Coach Supervisor, Service Delivery:   A friend came to me recently, heartbroken. She and her husband have been together for 10 years. He was her first love. And now, they’re getting a divorce. We thought they were great together. Sure, he smelled bad, but we let that go because she loved him so much. He was always with her at parties, always there to celebrate the fun times with her. He was there in the hard times too, when she had stressful days, when she felt... [More]

Janice Milliman, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:   The recent death of Patrick Swayze raised much media attention and discussion of a little known and very deadly cancer: pancreatic.  For me, it also brought back bad memories. My good friend, Jim, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March of 2007.  Unfortunately, he did not survive long, and lost his battle 2 months later. I felt such grief and compassion upon learning of Mr. Swayze's death.  I wondered if he suffered the extrem... [More]

Sandi Kaplan, MS, RD, Associate Director, Clinical Development and Support:   My 4 ½-year-old son recently started preschool. He was so proud to go off with his lunchbox filled with goodies like beans and rice, cherry tomatoes, a nectarine and a couple of dried dates for a sweet treat. He helped to prepare his lunch and was especially excited that the tomatoes were ones he had picked in a friend’s garden. On the second day of school, he was equally happy about taking his lunch. Bu... [More]

Ken Wassum, Senior Product Manager, Tobacco:   In a move that one cannot help but suspect is strategically calculated, Big Tobacco has filed suit against the FDA for restricting their First Amendment rights of free speech. The Congress passed legislation this last summer that gives the FDA the ability to regulate tobacco products, including how the industry advertises (Title II; Section 201; Sections a & b) their products. Given the track record of the tobacco industry of putting profit... [More]

Jennifer Lovejoy, Vice President, Clinical Development and Support:   “Processed food is gross, Mom,” said my 7th grade daughter the other day. She was prompted to make this statement by a book for kids called Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. (Yes, she checked this book out of the library completely on her own without any maternal pressure!) Schlosser, who also wrote the book Fast Food Nation for adults, does a good job in making the scary side of fast food and process... [More]

Jennifer Lovejoy, PhD, Vice President, Clinical Development and Support:   Recently, yet another study was released supporting the health benefits of chocolate. This time, researchers reported in the Journal of Internal Medicine that, in people who had previously had a heart attack, eating chocolate at least twice per week was associated with lower risk of dying of heart disease. Earlier research has shown that eating chocolate is associated with lower blood pressure, decreased risk of ... [More]

Erin Thompson, Marketing Manager:   Yesterday, The Washington Post ran excerpts from an interview with former FDA commissioner, David Kessler, who spoke about America’s obesity crisis and the need for a complete restructuring of the way we approach the problem: “…we have to change the way we look at food. Not how we look at fat people, not whether we want to be thin or not, but how we look at food. If you look at that lemon cake and say, ‘This is my friend,’ then there’s nothing I... [More]