Archive for the ‘Consumer Trends’ Category

Lining Up at Amazon and LillyDirect for Obesity Medicines

March 18, 2024 — Hear that rumble? Nope, it not the latest SpaceX launch. It is the roar of growing demand for obesity care in the U.S. Two pieces of news in the last week remind us of how steep the upward line of growth in obesity treatment is right now. To help it scale up their reach to […]

Well-Meant, but Promoting Weight Bias and Discrimination

March 12, 2024 — “We must support people living with obesity by educating them about healthy lifestyles.” This is #4 in a series of well-meant statements that promote weight bias and discrimination. Such a statement purports to mean well. But there are so many problems with comments like this that it’s difficult to summarize them all in a short […]

Public Confidence in Science Is High, but Declining

March 11, 2024 — We can point to any number of symptoms. The rise of measles because of skepticism about vaccination comes to mind. Certainly, we hear from people who reject scientific concepts about obesity. So it’s no surprise to us that a new report in PNAS documents high but declining public confidence in science. Arthur Lupia, David Allison, […]

Making Sense of Ultra-Processed Research Clickbait

March 2, 2024 — Nutrition research in medical journals follows trends that define what the cognoscenti can regard healthy – or not. For decades, the bad stuff was fat. Then we switched to the sugar is toxic meme and that was the preoccupation through the 2010s. Now there can be no doubt. Research on ultra-processed foods is providing a steady […]

Nobody “Owes” Anybody an Explanation for Their Body

February 28, 2024 — We are getting a bit fed up. This impatience comes with the presumption that people owe the world an explanation for their body. Is it fit enough? Is it fat enough? Are we wearing the right kind of body positive attitude? This comes from living in an excessively fat-conscious culture. But it also comes from […]

“Don’t Listen to Those Influencers,” Cries an Influencer

February 16, 2024 — Influencers are not doctors. They can’t understand the science issues with obesity drugs. That’s not what they do. With expressive skill, a leading influencer in the fat acceptance movement put her finger on an important issue in the Washington Post this week. On this, we totally agree. If we listen to many social media influencers, […]

No, Chocolate Is Not Really Medicine

February 14, 2024 — It seems obvious. If food is medicine, shouldn’t we be confident that chocolate is medicine? Certainly, Uma Naidoo is happy to sell you on this idea. She is a nutritional psychiatrist and author of “This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods That Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD and […]

The Snack Industry Won the Super Bowl

February 12, 2024 — Forget the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift. Well before the game ever started, it was very clear who would win the Super Bowl – the snack industry. The snacking industrial complex has been locked into hyperdrive for weeks, if not months, in preparation for last night’s event. The enticements were everywhere. The clickbait was […]

The Church of There’s No Such Thing as Obesity

February 11, 2024 — Religious tolerance seems hard to find lately. Ample illustrations of intolerance flow from the Middle East, India, and American politics – from all over the world, really. But in an age of less affiliation with organized religions, we also see people seek out other belief systems to latch their passions onto. Health and fitness are […]

More News Points to Explosive Growth for GLP-1 Medicines

February 7, 2024 — Let’s be clear from the start. Hype about “weight loss” drugs is exquisitely unhelpful. This is because weight loss is only an acute effect of new medicines that act on GLP-1 receptors and related pathways that influence obesity. The real need for these medicines is to control a whole range of chronic health problems that […]