Archive for August, 2022

Who Cares About Complexity and Nuance?

August 21, 2022 — Good and bad, healthy and toxic, clean and dirty, right and wrong. These are the kinds of distinctions the public, pundits, and policy makers can embrace. We too like simple guideposts – when they’re valid. But standing in the way of finding such simple guidance is a lot of complexity and nuance on many difficult […]

Fast Food and Obesity, Presumptions and Facts

August 20, 2022 — Fast food and junk food are slippery and pejorative terms that many people equate with a risk of obesity. Most people – even people who routinely consume it – presume that fast food is not good for health. With the release of Super Size Me in 2004, we seemed to hit a peak in the […]

Building Better Access to Care for Obesity

August 19, 2022 — More and more, people are coming around to the understanding that obesity is a complex, chronic disease. Not a lifestyle choice. Even the American Heart Association has finally begun to change its implicit bias about this. Yet we’re still falling short on the important task of building better access to care for real obesity care. […]

CDC Reorganizes, Science and Policy Rumble

August 18, 2022 — The tension between science and policy at CDC is inevitable. But that tension has never been in plain view more than during the COVID-19 pandemic. And so, citing a “botched” response to the pandemic, CDC director Rochelle Walensky says that she will launch a sweeping reorganization of the agency. Her announcement was thin on specifics. […]

Rising Obesity: The Third Half of the Root Cause

August 17, 2022 — For a very long time, a basic question about the rising rate of obesity has seemed to frustrate people. Why is it relentlessly rising? Some pundits seem to think people have become stupid, lazy, or undisciplined over the last several decades. “You think cake wasn’t delicious iu 1969?” quipped one self-appointed expert recently. Others are […]

Does Weight Stigma Harm More Than Obesity?

August 16, 2022 — An article of faith in the fat acceptance community is the idea that weight stigma causes more harm than obesity itself. In the extreme, there’s a belief that we should do away will any reference to obesity. People hold this belief because they think the health harm ascribed to obesity actually comes from weight stigma. […]

Immediate Harm of Weight Bias in Delayed Care

August 15, 2022 — Obesity is a slow burn. It erodes a person’s health over time, causing other diseases and an earlier death. In contrast, the harm of weight bias and stigma is immediate. First, there is the everyday onslaught of dehumanizing treatment one receives. A constant barrage of insults and slights creates stress that chips away at both […]

Arrogant Beliefs About People Living with Obesity

August 14, 2022 — Last week, when Bill Maher aired a rant about people living with obesity, he put a spotlight his own arrogant beliefs about people living with obesity. We have “gone from fat acceptance to fat celebration,” he said. Somehow, he believes that “to view yourself letting go as a point of pride” is the norm for […]

Avoiding the Subject of Adolescent Obesity

August 13, 2022 — Two new studies in Pediatric Obesity point to a common theme. It seems that healthcare providers, parents, and youth all, for various reasons, may be avoiding the subject of adolescent obesity. It is a difficult subject for all three groups – largely because of concerns about emotional well-being. Whether parents and youth talk about or […]

Obesity Drug Prices, Access, Chickens & Eggs

August 12, 2022 — An interesting conversation popped up in a recent session to prepare for the upcoming White House Conference on Hunger Nutrition and Health. It was about obesity drug prices, utilization, and ultimately, access to care. Dariush Mozaffarian was a key speaker at this session organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center. He offered his opinion that you […]