News Archive for April, 2018

Two new studies in Obesity point to a big opportunity lost for people living with obesity. Professional help with obesity can offer significant improvements in quality of life. And yet, 90% of the people who could benefit don’t get that help. DIY obesity care is the dominant strategy. DIY Obesity Care Andrew Stokes and colleagues […]

Everyone wants to eat healthy. The healthy food marketing machine is ready and able to sell it to you. And so, FDA is gearing up the tools to help. At the recent National Food Policy Conference in Washington, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb offered a snapshot of agency priorities on health claims for food. Healthy and […]

Beautiful honesty is a gift for an ugly world. And yet again, Roxane Gay offers us this gift with a well-crafted essay on her decision to have gastric sleeve surgery in January this year. Mixed Emotions About a Harsh Reality This was not an easy decision. Gay describes the final straw: After more than 15 […]

Human nature can be noble and it can be shameful. But how do you counter the shame of human nature that expresses itself in weight bias and stigma? Some very smart people (Rebecca Puhl of the Rudd Center comes to mind) have gone after it with academic rigor. Social activists and the internet named it “fat […]

It’s one of those deeply entrenched beliefs. Having a baby can be a trigger for weight gain that’s seemingly impossible to shed. But it begs a question. Does having children increase the risk of obesity for a woman? A new study published in Obesity this week suggests that the answer is no. No Association Between […]

Obesity affects men and women differently. It’s an obvious fact – whether you’re living with obesity yourself or you care for people living with it. But discussions of weight stigma and fat shaming often focus almost exclusively on women. This needs to change. New research published in Obesity this week makes it clear that shaming and […]

Late last week, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine published a correlation study of sugar and diet soda consumption in mothers during pregnancy and soon after childbirth. The researchers found that mothers who consumed more sugar during pregnancy and after childbirth tended to have children with lower cognition scores. But the researchers note correctly: As […]

You’ve probably heard that dieting can wreck your metabolism. It’s a simple way to explain repeated cycles of losing and regaining weight. But it’s a pretty poor explanation for the complexity of metabolic adaptation. A new study in Obesity asks us to consider an alternate view. Calorie Restriction or Overfeeding? It’s true enough that when […]

What’s good for each of us isn’t automatically good for the planet. So says a new study of diet, food waste, and environmental sustainability. “Eat more fruits and veggies” lies at the heart of a lot of advice for healthy eating. But Zach Conrad and colleagues found that more fruits and veggies also mean more […]

The Daily Express is doing a fine job of upholding a strong reputation for promoting fat shaming in the UK. The tabloid managed to find a sensational guilt trip in three Lancet articles this week on women’s health. The headline was: “Unhealthy lifestyles of mothers-to-be could wreck the lives of future generations.” But the real bottom line […]