MICHELE NORRIS, host: Now to your letters. Yesterday, I discussed the frightening increase in childhood obesity rates with Dr. Gail Nunlee-Bland. She is a pediatric endocrinologist at Howard University Hospital.</s>Dr. GAIL NUNLEE-BLAND (Pediatric Endocrinologist, Howard University Hospital): When I see patients in my office, I encourage the families to make lifestyle changes. I mean it's just not the child's problem and really encouraging family to have more physical activity in their life, to choose healthier food.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Elizabeth McAfee(ph) of Lexington, Kentucky, felt we left something out of that conversation. She writes, it's not entirely about making better food choices. I was an overweight child and my mother home cooked everything. We had plenty of fruits and vegetables in our diet. But I still overate and had type 2 diabetes by age 19, and being put on too many diets as a child also had an impact. It led to a lifetime of eating disorders for me. Ms. McAfee goes on to say, I feel to address the body issues without addressing the mental and emotional health of these children is not prudent or in their best interest.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: Also yesterday I spoke with David Rose, author of "Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland," a compilation of personal ads from the London Review of Books. The title comes from an ad placed by a 54-year-old woman and Rose said he thought she must be full of neutrality perhaps with cold mountains to surmount. But Paul Constantine(ph) of Seattle, Washington, heard differently, he was beguiled. Constantine writes, I heard a woman saying I speak three languages of love, I have amazing peaks and I know how to keep a secret.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Well, please don't keep your opinions a secret. Write to us at npr.org.
A letter from one listener weighs in on an often unconsidered aspect of childhood obesity: emotional eating. And another listener thinks he knows what a 54-year-old woman implied when she wrote "sexually, I'm a Switzerland" in her personal ad.