Calm down, folks. Uncle Sam isn’t going to bang in your door and confiscate your salt shaker. Though it’s really not a bad idea.
According to a very poorly phrased Rasmussen poll, 55 percent of the …

Foods made with white sugar, fructose, corn syrup, or any thing ending in “-ose” are banned – presumably, this doesn’t apply to lactose – but peanut butter laced with honey is OK.
Crackers …

Here’s another one from the files marked “eat real food, please”:
Two separate studies at Princeton University found that lab animals fed high fructose corn syrup – presumably the mercury-free variety – gained more weight than …

Back when my job involved actually leaving my house, there wasn’t a lunchbox in the world big enough for me.
I usually ran out the door without breakfast, triggering the need to pack snack one. The …

Here’s a tricky one to tackle:
According to an article in March’s edition of Pediatrics, nearly 30 percent of overweight teens don’t know that they’re overweight. And if they don’t know they’re overweight, they’re less likely …

Yes, I eat the occasional burger and fries. Ice cream and cookies, too.
Now that first lady Michelle Obama has stepped into the confessional and admitted as much herself, I feel safe in going public as …

I’ve been eeking out just enough minutes of activity to meet the government’s fitness recommendations – they’re not as demanding as you think – though my gymophobia holds me back on weeks too wet to …

It’s kind of awkward that the Federal Trade Commission wants the health-care bill to include a ban on settlements between drug companies that keep generic drugs off the market – delays the commission says costs …

From the state that led the battle against transfat comes the latest assault on manufacturer-induced nutrition nightmares: New York City wants companies to cut down on the amount of sodium in food.
Good luck on that …

With a callous eye toward the bottom line, insurance companies unhesitantly ax coverage for medications asthmatic children need. Don’t deny it. It’s happened to us.
If executives won’t shell out $300 to prevent an emergency room …

Bacteria are normal. Bacteria are good. Bacteria can even help the immune system.
So say researchers at the University of California, San Diego.  According to an article in The Guardian, the very same staphylococci that causes …

Are you walking around humming a happy tune, blue birds over one shoulder and a rainbow over the other?
You better find something to worry about and fast. It turns out that, while walking around in …

It took me a while, but I finally figured out where I’d previously seen the scam the drug companies are trying to pull off on health care reform.
It was about this time last year, at …

The best parenting advice I ever heard was from an older co-worker who’d raised three daughters.
“Don’t try to ban junk food,” he said. “It will backfire. They’ll sneak it on the sly anyway and wind …

If you have a chance to pass a law that would reduce by almost half the chance that a kid would be injured in a car accident, how quickly would you ask, “where do I …

Have you come down from the ceiling yet over the story about the nine states where  insurance company can refuse to provide health coverage for domestic violence victims because the abuse is a “pre-existing …

You have a nasty habit of speeding. You know your break-neck tendencies put others’ lives in danger, but you do it anyway.
But then along comes a proposal that would pay you to not speed. Sounds …

Los Angeles tried weight control by zoning a year ago, banning new fast-food restaurants in the southern part of the city.
That didn’t work, and a new study now suggests that including nutrition information on menus …

I have to admit that, other than what now appears to be a daily pool commitment, I’ve been living the easy life in the past few months since Big Guy’s busted wrist booted him out …

I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime in the past 20 years soda became the new water.
It wasn’t that way when I was a kid. Growing up, we had soda on special occasions – …

File under the category of “things workers already know but certain so-called leaders like to deny:”
Workers’ health insurance costs increased 5 percent this year – for those still lucky enough to have both jobs and …

A good friend’s husband retired a few years back, but they made sure they had continuing health coverage, to the tune of $1,400 a month – that’s actually not a bad deal these days.
For all …

For years, the Centers for Disease Control recommendations for who should have priority for flu vaccines have been pretty much the same:
Children, pregnant women, the elderly, people with certain chronic diseases and health-care workers. The …

Gen.  Bus Stop called a cease fire long enough Friday morning to size up Big Guy.
The general – a second-grader who’s husky, but not quite chubby – clearly was in charge the battalion of stick-gun …

No how, no way, I thought when I saw the news that the National Institutes of Health was about to begin clinical trials of the swine flu vaccine in children.
Oh, I understand that it’s necessary …

In some pregnant women, it hits in epic proportions and doesn’t let up for nine months.
Yes, I’m talking about gas. It’s another one of those dirty little secrets of child-bearing – one that’s right up …

I read about the Spanish woman who gave birth to twins three years ago at age 66, and I cringed.
I cringed again this week when I read that she’d died, leaving behind two toddler boys.
Yet, …

The eyes and the brain are amazing organs, allowing us to see and interpret the world around us.
Or, in some cases, letting us delude ourselves into believing we’re seeing something different from objective reality.
That’s what …

I partially bought the drug-company spin on Singulair in January largely because I wanted to:
The Food and Drug Administration found no link between the popular asthma drug and increased suicide risk, which led manufacturer Merck …

After two winters of tumult as the Food and Drug Administration danced the children’s cold-medicine hokey-pokey, finally there’s a report with a conclusion other than recall it all.
Researchers in Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin …

Forget the fruits and veggies and go ahead and binge on the burgers. You’ll eventually have to turn your kids loose on the world anyway, where their friends, television and school might be a bigger …

Is it necessary for Centers for Disease Control experts to remind us to not pee in the pool? Don’t they have more important things to handle, like maybe swine flu or West Nile?
Do we really …

They never believed me.
From the time Big Guy started eating solid foods, I insisted that it be done the “right” way – the way doctors recommend for any child, but particularly for one with a …

New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has been ahead of the curve on a number of issues, sponsoring legislation that probably drew chuckles when he introduced it.
Seven years ago, he was responsible for the nation’s first …

Proof positive health-insurance executives are living on a different planet from the rest of us:
A company that covers federal workers tells a 5-year-old Reno girl with leukemia that she’ll have to have chemotherapy in Oakland. …

Here’s a move that makes so much sense it’s stunning that more agencies aren’t considering it.
According to the Arizona Republic, health care professionals in that state are expanding their system of asthma alerts to include …

More than 100 years after Franklin Roosevelt pushed new food safety laws, virtually everyone agrees it isn’t working.
When Kraft supports giving the Food and Drug Administration recall powers, something is amiss.
When the president creates a …

If you’re going to pull a fast one, make it a whopper.
I’m not talking about the type of stunt I tried in eighth grade, when instead of merely making up a book report on something …