Archive for October, 2016

Where’s the Outrage Over Screen Time?

October 22, 2016 — The American Academy of Pediatrics released new position papers Friday on screen time for young children and teens. The bottom line? Guidance just got looser. A hard and fast ban on screen time for children under two went out the window. Now the advice is no screen time under 18 months…unless it’s a video chat with […]

Banning Obesity in Worship?

October 21, 2016 — A rather confused story about banning obesity in worship came out of Oregon recently. The New Creation Church of Hillsboro attracted attention to its Worship Team Guidelines, which seemed to ban people with obesity from leading worship: No Excessive weight. Weight is something that many people have to deal with. Make sure that you are taking […]

Unacceptable Liver Toxicity from Dietary Supplements

October 20, 2016 — To understand the potential for harm from herbal and dietary supplements (HDS) for weight loss, consider this observation recently published in Hepatology: HDS-induced liver injury now accounts for 20% of cases of hepatotoxicity in the United States based on research data. The major implicated agents include anabolic steroids, green tea extract, and multi-ingredient nutritional supplements (MINS). This observation […]

Mangled Messages about Saturated Fats

October 19, 2016 — Depending on what you read, you might be firm in your faith that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats is a good strategy for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Or your might wonder about sensational ideas advanced by health reporters like Sandy Hingston and Nina Teicholz. Hingston says “USDA screwed up the American diet – and […]

Sweet Tweets about Nutrition and Health (or Not)

October 18, 2016 — How much scientific rigor can you pack into a seminar about nutrition tweets? At the annual meeting of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in Boston yesterday, Cheryl Toner and Heather Mangieri proved you can pack quite a bit. All in the context of nutrition in popular culture. The video on the right – gently poking […]

CSOWM: New Marker for Expert Obesity Care

October 17, 2016 — Until recently, finding expert obesity care has not been easy. Most primary care providers are reluctant to treat obesity seriously. They are also slow to refer. Among hundreds of thousands of allied health professionals, some have real expertise in obesity care, but most do not. Finding an expert provider is often a matter of trial […]

Obesity Care: Giving Up, Doubling Down, or Getting Real?

October 16, 2016 — Primary care providers face a dilemma. More than a third of adults have obesity. Providers spend 75% of their time managing the chronic diseases that result – things like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and arthritis. So what should they be doing about obesity? Does telling a patient to lose weight mean that a provider is […]

The Wicked Problem of Obesity Across Generations

October 15, 2016 — The wicked problem of obesity across generations confounds even the brightest souls who have tried to tackle it. In series of five papers newly published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, a distinguished group of clinicians and scientists describe the daunting scope of this problem. With an overview commentary, Mark Hanson, Peter Gluckman, and Flavia Bustreo build upon the […]

Soda? Nah, We’re Drinking Yogurt

October 14, 2016 — Soda is so yesterday. Drinking yogurt seems so much healthier. And it may well be. Along with 22 grams of sugar, you get lots of good stuff, like protein, vitamins, and minerals. The calories might be more than a 10-ounce Coke (220 vs 120), but there’s more nutrition. Those numbers come from the Drink Chobani brand, […]

Scorching the Earth for Public Health

October 13, 2016 — Scorching hot rhetoric seems to be the favored tool for public policy debates at the moment. Obesity related health policy is no exception. The food industry is a huge target with many segments to attack: fast food, processed food makers, industrial farming, “big soda,” and sugar producers. The latest outrage is summed up in this New York […]