January 21, 2014 — In an ongoing skirmish about healthy body images with fashion publications, Jezebel recently overreached and caused some to wonder, “Is this issue becoming moot?” Jezebel offered a $10,000 bounty for unretouched photos of Lena Dunham taken for Vogue, saying “her body is real” but the images of her in Vogue are “probably not terribly real.” After […]
January 20, 2014 — Physical activity is a subject that can stir up a civilized conflict among obesity researchers and the current issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology has done just that. With a provocative analysis of physical activity’s role in obesity, Amy Luke and Richard Cooper inspired five more commentaries from distinguished experts on the subject. Here’s […]
January 19, 2014 — Nine years ago, before the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) formed, people with obesity had no voice in health policy to address obesity. Work on obesity treatment was slowing to a standstill and many efforts to address obesity did more to stigmatize people with obesity than to improve our health. Today, thanks to the OAC, the […]
January 18, 2014 — An obesity paradox is like catnip for the media — unfortunately. And so various forms of obesity paradox have been in the news lately. Here are three examples getting a lot of attention. Diabetes Obesity Paradox. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine this week debunked the notion that people with excess weight and […]
January 17, 2014 — Obesity trends are following distinctly different tracks in different populations. For health policymakers deeply invested in established policies for addressing obesity, the temptation is great to gloss over the the disparate experiences and trends. But the differences are too stark to ignore. High Socioeconomic Status Populations. After decades of leading the world with growing obesity […]
January 16, 2014 — Chris Christie’s weight just might be an asset in his quest to advance his political career. Smug pundits may be completely wrong when they talk about his weight as a liability. Here are three ways it can help. Distraction. Right now Christie needs a distraction — anything will do — to move on from the […]
January 15, 2014 — You might need a flu shot this year because the flu is hitting some groups of people harder than it usually does. Most of the serious flu cases this year are causes by the H1N1 strain of the influenza virus. The groups that are affected more by this strain include: Younger People. In prior years, […]
January 14, 2014 — Eat slowly is no doubt advice that you have heard for some time, perhaps starting with your mother. It sounds like a wise tip — good advice for all. But is it? As it turns out, that depends on how you define good advice and whether you have obesity. If you’re defining good advice as something […]
January 13, 2014 — Your brain on food functions differently than it does before you’ve eaten, and differently still if you have obesity. Through the magic of functional brain magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we have growing insight into your brain’s response to food cues and how that varies with obesity and meals. Food Memories. Before a meal, the brains […]
January 12, 2014 — Weight bias is getting four kinds of critical public attention that gives hope we’re turning a corner on this problem. Increasingly it’s being called out as unacceptable fat shaming. A quick look at Google Trends shows you that 2012 was the year people started taking notice of “fat shaming.” Before That it simply didn’t show […]
