Archive for February, 2022

OCW2022: Looking Ahead Ten Years in Obesity Care

February 28, 2022 — “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Yogi Berra had that right. So it’s good to start into OCW2022 by clearly looking ahead at the future for obesity care with six distinguished leaders from diverse backgrounds. In a wide-ranging discussion for OCW2022, they are looking forward to advances in science, […]

OCW2022: Seeking More Progress to Overcome Obesity

February 27, 2022 — Nine years ago, the American Medical Association came to understand that obesity is a complex, chronic disease. Not a behavioral problem. Not amenable to simple DIY solutions. Now, this week marks the eighth year that health advocates band together to call for better caring, less bias, and more science to reduce the harm of obesity. […]

Diet Culture Comes for Pets

February 26, 2022 — Disapproval of “diet culture” is quite popular in the media right now. But at the same time, people can’t stop tinkering with their diets. In fact, it seems that diet culture is expanding its circle of influence to engulf our pets. Now the New York Times reports that people are putting their pets on regimens […]

Another Effective and Ineffective Anti-Obesity Policy

February 25, 2022 — Authors of a new study in PLOS Medicine tell us that they have encouraging new evidence for an effective anti-obesity policy. They conclude “These findings provide support for policies that restrict HFSS [high fat, salt, or sugar] product advertising as a tool to reduce purchases of HFSS products, as a way of improving population diet […]

Bariatric Surgery to Reduce Breast Cancer Risk?

February 24, 2022 — “Bariatric surgery may be a powerful tool in breast cancer prevention and treatment,” write Trevor Crafts and colleagues in a new review paper for Obesity. But there’s just one problem. All of the research that points to this possible value is observational. So we need a prospective clinical trial of bariatric surgery to reduce the […]

Weight Neutral Healthcare: Cause for a Pause?

February 23, 2022 — Are we listening to each other? Not too much, it seems. It’s not even clear that we’re listening to ourselves. Often, we’re too busy making a point. Right now, we’re hearing a lot of people making points about weight neutral healthcare. Dani Donovan, a 30-year-old patient advocate with binge eating disorder recently found a medical […]

A Bear with Obesity Living Large in a Gated Community

February 22, 2022 — For insight into the notion that something is wrong with our food environment, consider the case of Hank the Tank. Hank is a bear of size in South Lake Tahoe, California. Living large with obesity in a posh gated community, this bear is wreaking havoc. All because he found an ample supply of food. California’s […]

More Veggies, Less Heart Disease? Not Exactly

February 21, 2022 — In this moment, food policy advocates are in love with plant-based diets. Many reasons do favor plant-based diets. In fact, the advice to eat more vegetables has been dispensed at family tables for generations. The American Heart Association promotes eating more veggies for cutting heart disease risk with great enthusiasm. But today, a new study […]

The Invisible Endemic of Hateful Bone Disease

February 20, 2022 — The hate crimes trial of three White men in Georgia who chased down and killed a Black man when he ran through their neighborhood is coming to an end. Mercifully, we have not had to listen to any of them testify that they don’t have a racist or hateful bone in their body. But let’s […]

The Pandemic Rise in Eating Disorders

February 19, 2022 — To folks who concern themselves with eating disorders, this is not news. Rather, it is confirmation. The pandemic has brought a sharp rise in eating disorders. A new report yesterday in the MMWR provides solid documentation. In fact, the proportion of emergency department visits with eating disorders doubled for teenage girls during the pandemic. Emily […]