January 10, 2022 — Many of us are on an anxious journey right now. We know that being older, or living with a condition like obesity, means added risks for COVID. So we’ve been careful. But now the Omicron variant adds a bit of uncertainty because it is so contagious and so many people are getting the infection. Yet, […]
January 9, 2022 — “Know that BMI is BS.” On NPR’s Life Kit podcast, that’s the advice for coping with the boogeyman of diet culture. Whatever diet culture is, in this season of anxiety about weight and health, it certainly seems to be on the minds of many influencers. So if one defines diet culture as a preoccupation with […]
January 8, 2022 — Ten years ago, the American Board of Obesity Medicine was not yet certifying physicians in this specialty. Today, obesity medicine is one of the fastest growing medical specialties in the U.S. A total of 5,242 physicians hold this certification. This is indeed good. But the bad news is that it is far from adequate. That […]
January 7, 2022 — In the midst of a huge surge of COVID cases due to omicron, hospitals are seeing a remarkable growth in children admitted with COVID. Until last week, the record for daily hospital admissions of children up to 17 years old with COVID was 340. That’s a seven-day average. But last week brought nearly twice as […]
January 7, 2022 — We are stuck in an infinite loop, it seems. Yet again, we have a new report in MMWR to tell us that Americans are eating too few fruits and veggies. In fact, only one in ten meet the recommendation in the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans. That’s one and a half to two cups of […]
January 6, 2022 — We knew that 2022 would bring more plants into the food we eat, with plant-based diets continuing to be a hot topic. This long-term trend would also bring some faddish ultra-processed foods along the way, we wrote. Six days into the new year, KFC and Chipotle are fulfilling the promise with new offerings of fake […]
January 5, 2022 — The concept of dieting – restrained eating for the express purpose of weight loss – has hit a well-deserved rough patch. For three decades the implicit answer to obesity has been simple and simplistic: eat less and move more. It doesn’t work well, so dieting has gained a bad reputation. And yet here we are. […]
January 4, 2022 — “Healthy eating” is the catchphrase of the moment. This moment – in case you’re living under a rock – is January, when many people think about losing the excess pounds they picked up over the holidays. But there’s a problem this year. Diet culture is unhealthy and immoral, says moral philosopher Kate Manne. So talking […]
January 3, 2022 — GMO foods have been a source of fiery controversy for a decade. Today, the USDA has pulled off a regulatory miracle. Starting now, there will be no more GMO foods in the U.S. None. Instead, we will call them bioengineered. USDA even has a friendly little logo for food companies to slap on their products. […]
January 2, 2022 — Perhaps this is a familiar pattern – a mixture of good news and bad news. The bad news is likely not really news. Many people are comparing our difficult circumstances of this past year to the so-called dark ages. But the good news is that it isn’t hard to see signs we are set to […]
