July 13, 2014 — A trustworthy doctor, in the eyes of someone with obesity, is likely to be one who will not judge them based upon their weight. This finding from researchers at Johns Hopkins builds further understanding of how weight bias — all too common in healthcare providers — erodes the likelihood of good clinical outcomes for people […]
July 12, 2014 — Late this week, headlines proclaiming another victory against childhood obesity flowed from a study of severe obesity in public elementary and middle schools of New York City. Researchers from the NYC Department of Health concluded that their efforts to reduce obesity brought the prevalence of severe childhood obesity down by 9.5% in these school children between […]
July 11, 2014 — Regulating two of our vices — nicotine and junk food — winds up being a series of experiments on public health. Some of those experiments are more successful than others, and we seldom know their effects until after the fact — if ever. Right now, we’re in the midst of two of these experiments. E-Cigarettes. Sales of […]
July 10, 2014 — The stream of daily insults, judgments, and humiliation that people with obesity encounter typically get lost in pious discussions about the problem of obesity and a naive preoccupation with preventing a condition that already affects two thirds of American adults. But a daily diary study of weight stigmatization in women recently published in the Journal […]
July 9, 2014 — The collateral health effects of obesity in families is becoming ever more clear. It’s been evident for some time that about 60% of the risk of obesity has a genetic basis. That’s a big reason you can spot family trends so often. But another important learning is the value that treatment can have for the […]
July 8, 2014 — Medical literature is growing beyond the grasp of individuals trying to comprehend its breadth. PubMed now holds more than 23 million records. Crowdsourcing may be a necessary way of coping. Andrew Brown and David Allison offer up some evidence in a new PLOS ONE publication that it can work. Using Amazon’s MTurk service, they doled out four groups […]
July 7, 2014 — Three recent publications are telling us that better obesity care doesn’t have to cost more. Adult primary care, family-based therapy for obesity of children and parents, and bariatric surgery each present opportunities for cost-effective therapy. A group of researchers randomized 390 adult patients with severe obesity in Louisiana to standard care or intensive medical obesity treatment. […]
July 6, 2014 — In the competitive marketplace for food, one thing that a food maker can do to bolster sales is add sugar. That’s why a serving of low-fat yogurt can easily have more sugar than a kid’s cereal like Lucky Charms. Yogurt is a great example of a food with a healthy halo that has slowly turned into […]
July 5, 2014 — Workplace wellness is coming to terms with reality. A year ago, expectations were soaring that financial incentives would be just the ticket to persuade people to turn away from obesity. Sunny brochures were promising that programs like Healthy Blue Living would send everyone on their way to a healthy lifestyle and a BMI under 30. Never […]
July 4, 2014 — “TV kills” is the best sound byte from an abundant crop of creative causality science reporting this week. The runners up are: Napping Causes Dementia Fizzy Drinks Cause Breast Cancer Smartphone Apps Cause STDs The winning headline was sparked by a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association that […]
