Archive for May, 2014

Does Sugar Cause Insanity?

May 12, 2014 — Looking for an absurd proposition, we though that asking “Does Sugar Cause Insanity?” would be a safe bet. Nah, not even close. Browse on over to Google and you’ll get 2.5 million hits on this question. In fact, it turns out that this concept isn’t even particularly new. Malcolm Peet published a study in 2004 […]

Less Smoking + More Obesity = Lost Productivity

May 11, 2014 — Lost productivity is the net result of a workplace with less smoking and more obesity, according to a new study of company health examination records for more than 5,000 Shell Oil Company employees over three decades. The investigators observed a stark contrast between effective interventions to reduce smoking prevalence among employees compared to an apparent of […]

Fight Obesity with Local Craft Beer

May 10, 2014 — We’re not sure that local craft beer is an evidence-based obesity intervention. But somehow it doesn’t surprise us to find a Brew Rendezvous promoted in San Diego by the Community Health Improvement Partners for the purpose of promoting healthy nutrition and fighting obesity. The event sounds like great fun. If you mix a sunny day […]

Brain Inflammation: Cause or Effect of Obesity?

May 9, 2014 — Brain inflammation is a mechanism that is gaining a lot of attention to help explain why obesity is so difficult to treat. Anyone affected by obesity can tell you how difficult sustained weight loss can be through diet and physical activity alone. The hypothalamus is a region of the brain well known (by scientists, at least) to […]

Whole Foods Discovers Competition

May 8, 2014 — Whole Foods investors yesterday discovered competition. The value of stock in this iconic retailer of natural and organic foods dropped by a whopping 19% today after they announced disappointing earnings. Founder John Mackey put his finger on the problem, saying: Competition is more intense right now than we’ve possibly ever experienced before. For a long […]

Seeing Obesity — 3 Effects

May 7, 2014 — Does seeing obesity all around us change our perceptions of it? Seeing obesity is something that everyone assumes they can do, but the truth is that it’s not so simple as sizing people up visually. Taking someone’s height and weight doesn’t give you the whole story of their health. Yet we persist in focusing on the […]

Ob-Gyn: What Obesity?

May 6, 2014 — A study just presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology suggests that Ob-Gyn physicians have no problem with obesity. They just don’t see it. Abbe Kordik, Marci Adams, and Beth Plunkett examined the electronic medical records of a health system that cares for more than 3.5 million patients in […]

Plummeting & Skyrocketing: Childhood Obesity, Diabetes

May 5, 2014 — Plummeting and skyrocketing headlines about childhood obesity and diabetes are coming at us in close succession. There’s no hint of self awareness from health reporters about the incongruity of these reports. A little over a month after headlines proclaimed “Obesity Rate for Young Children Plummets” we have headlines proclaiming “Diabetes Rates Skyrocket in Kids and Teens.” […]

Childhood Obesity: Ready, Fire, Aim

May 4, 2014 — Aim is an important part of hitting a target. For childhood obesity we have an ambitious target to reverse the excess of childhood obesity within a generation. But a new report in Preventing Chronic Disease tells us that people are much more ready to fire off solutions to childhood obesity than they are to commit to […]

Who’s Hungry?

May 3, 2014 — Who’s hungry? In America, it’s more people than you might think. In Mississippi — the state most affected by hunger — one in four households (24.5%) report food hardship. In 30 states, at least one in six households report food hardships. And in the least hungry state in America — North Dakota — the number is one […]