When talking about obesity, people can easily lapse into judgmental terms that place the blame on the overweight person. But who's responsible for the widespread and growing problem of childhood obesity? More importantly, how can we stop it?

A close friend’s ailing 92-year-old mother moved into his house the week before Christmas, prompting conversations about emergency procedures and advanced directives. Advanced directives are the legal documents that make clear to your physician, family and caregivers your preferences for care in the event of a life-threatening accident or illness.

If you’ve taken steps to create a more peaceful environment and made changes to your daily routine to better prepare your body for rest, only to find that you still have poor or interrupted sleep, an underlying medical condition could be the cause. This merits a discussion with your doctor.

Let's give it up for Pastor Randy Maynard and St. Andrews United Methodist Church in Raleigh. St. Andrews is in a weight-loss contest with three neighboring churches, and Randy is setting the pace, having lost 43 pounds in a little under 90 days. (Am I reading this right? Wow!)

Here is Yonat Shimron's write-up in the Raleigh N&O;. This sounds like a wonderful idea, bringing congregants and whole churches together, and highlighting the links between body and spirit, and between health and Christian discipleship.

Now that you've assessed your sleeping environment, let's address the sleeper.

We work hard to get children into a routine that promotes their going to sleep. Have we outgrown the need for such rituals? Maybe not. A bath, warm milk, comforting reading, and saying prayers - they can't hurt.

I am jealous of the sleep habits of my collegiate son, who for some time now has been able to log 10 hours of sleep in a single night.

One of the "gifts" of aging is an alteration in our sleep patterns, causing us to have difficulty falling or staying asleep. Insomnia affects about a third of all adults, and can have significant effects on our health. This post addresses ways to alter your environment to improve sleep. Future posts will suggest ways to adjust your behaviors and identify the point when you should seek medical help for poor sleep.

This morning, the news media reported new screening guidelines for breast cancer, revising long-standing recommendations about when women should begin receiving mammograms. This shift is aimed at reducing the risks that may be associated with a very broad screening guideline.

I had an interesting experience at a pharmacy-based clinic the other day: the practitioner asked me how I preferred to receive my health information. Did I want to read printed written instructions? Listen to them? Go on the Internet?

Our health coaches at Davidson Clergy Center are beginning to advise us that we should talk about “The Wall” – that phenomenon that occurs about three months into making a planned behavior change. Suddenly, the great plan doesn’t seem so great and workable any more, and with the change of time, weather, season, workload, suddenly “back-sliding” ( a medical term) can occur. This is a normal, expected stage in making long-term change.

Always in search of the magic bullet, I came across a new resource that I’m trying out myself and wanted to share with you. It is The 10-Minute Total Body Breakthrough, by Sean Foy and Nellie Sabin.