March 21, 2022 — It seems pretty clear. Increased screen time correlates with a higher risk of obesity. In children and teens, for example, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis told us the risk goes up by two thirds with more than two hours daily. Recent prospective research links high screen time with BMI going higher a year later. […]
March 20, 2022 — “Focusing on cancer, focusing on obesity, focusing on diabetes, a whole range of diseases … we’re going to make significant breakthroughs.” This in a nutshell is the aspiration for ARPA-H, as voiced by President Joe Biden. It is a new agency with a billion dollars of funding for the next three years, passed in a bipartisan […]
March 19, 2022 — An amazing thing happened this week. The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make daylight saving time permanent. The amazement comes from two things. First and perhaps most obviously, it’s amazing that the Senate can do anything by unanimous consent in these contentious times. But more startling is that they could do it without a peep […]
March 18, 2022 — This is good news that is both big and very welcome. In 2023, health plans for federal employees will likely open up to obesity care more than ever before. In its call for proposals to carriers that provide these health plans, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is quite clear: “Obesity has long been […]
March 17, 2022 — Should we be having potatoes for breakfast? An interesting new study this week adds to the evidence that when we eat different foods might matter for health outcomes as much as our choice of foods. Specifically, this research was an analysis of mortality in persons with diabetes based on NHANES data from 2003 to 2014. […]
March 16, 2022 — It’s standard advice. “Every woman is different, but studies show that for women who have overweight or obesity, losing weight raised their chances of getting pregnant,” says the U.S. Office on Women’s Health. There’s just one little problem with this advice. It’s based on a presumption. The “studies” they mention document a correlation – not […]
March 15, 2022 — The pandemic isn’t done with us yet. Cases are rising a bit in Europe and it’s anyone’s guess where this is heading. But certainly, it appears that many of us are done with the pandemic. Does this mean the boom in meal kits will fade? Will it turn out that they were just a pandemic […]
March 14, 2022 — “Yes, not all types of food processing are bad and not all UPF are equally bad,” writes Carlos Monteiro. He’s commenting on a new study of ultra-processed foods in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Because he is the author and a big promoter of the NOVA UPF classification scheme, his comments are notable. But the […]
March 13, 2022 — We are getting an eyeful of injustice, cruelty, hubris, and selfishness. It comes to us in examples large and small. On a catastrophic scale, it’s unfolding in Ukraine. In subtler but relentless increments, we see it in pervasive bias against people living with obesity. Dispiriting as all of this is, an antidote is available to […]
March 12, 2022 — A new study in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension tells us that roughly half of youth seeking obesity care have high blood pressure. This medical fact puts us squarely in the middle of a sensitive subject that arouses strong emotions. These emotions have their roots in the bias attached to obesity and the stigma that […]
