June 20, 2013 — Tuesday’s decision by AMA to designate obesity as a disease continues to spark remarkable public attention. ConscienHealth founder Ted Kyle appeared on the Nightly Business Report Wednesday, along with Caroline Apovian and other health and obesity experts to discuss the implications of this news. Click here to view this segment of the Nightly Business Report […]
June 20, 2013 — In a week of milestones for obesity policy, Democrats and Republicans joined in Washington to introduce the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act in both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Coming a day after the American Medical Association voted for the first time to declare obesity a disease, this bill opens the […]
June 19, 2013 — At its annual meeting in Chicago, the American Medical Association surprised most observers Tuesday and declared that obesity is a disease. Not some sort of vague problem. Not a bad choice. Not a lifestyle you can simply shed. Obesity is “a disease state with multiple pathophysiological aspects requiring a range of interventions to advance obesity […]
June 18, 2013 — News comes from the American Medical Association’s annual meeting in Chicago that the House of Delegates is deliberating on whether it’s time to declare that obesity is really a disease. At last year’s meeting, a resolution to do so from the Illinois delegation was referred for study to AMA’s Council on Science and Public Health. […]
June 17, 2013 — Chronic diseases will affect half of all Americans by 2020, and most of those diseases will stem from obesity and excess weight. Those diseases are responsible for most of the growth in healthcare costs and we cannot hope to get those costs under control without giving patients and physicians as many tools as possible for […]
June 16, 2013 — “When we hear unqualified advice to eat more of this or that healthy food, we start to worry,” said Gary Foster recently at the Blackburn Course on Obesity sponsored by Harvard Medical School. Foster was reviewing a body of impressive community intervention studies he and his colleagues at Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research and […]
June 15, 2013 — In an ironic twist, it’s turning out that the Affordable Care Act — known to some as Obamacare — may be unaffordable for some low-wage workers because of a loophole that gives employers credit for offering “affordable” insurance that low-wage employees can’t afford. The problem lies in the definition of what’s affordable, literally, in the law […]
June 14, 2013 — This week brings a couple of solid reminders of just how bad and how good childhood obesity ads can be. On the awful end of the spectrum, we have First 5 California running an ad with a little girl made fat through “creepy photoshopping,” in the words of author and blogger Marilyn Wann. First 5 […]
June 13, 2013 — We have ample reasons to eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from our diets. The notion of policy initiatives to encourage people to do this attracts a lot of support, with good reasons. And yet, when we seek hard evidence for the effect that these initiatives will have on obesity, the evidence for a meaningful effect turns out […]
June 12, 2013 — Belviq® (lorcaserin) this week becomes the first new drug for obesity on pharmacy shelves in more than a decade. Expectations for Belviq are all over the place, ranging from blockbuster hype to a cautious yawn. We can only hope for some middle ground. With Belviq, we have the first totally new drug in more than […]
