October 21, 2022 — Among the many interesting presentations from three days of focus on causes of obesity, a just-so story stands out. We heard a number of just-so stories this week – untested fables to explain how we came to have so much obesity. They fit neatly with with an agenda that calls for a discussion of conjectures. […]
October 20, 2022 — Frustration or amazement. Take your pick. John Speakman brought a close to three days of some of the best presentations ever on the causes of obesity and summed things up nicely: “The causes of obesity turn out to be exceedingly complex. Although I’ve learned a lot, we’ve not reached any sort of conclusion about what […]
October 19, 2022 — The second day of the epic meeting on obesity causes at the Royal Society in London came round to the subject that preoccupies almost everyone – food and physical activity. One thing is certain. This is a pair of subjects that evokes strong passions, but the strength of the data often does not match the […]
October 18, 2022 — Yesterday was the first of three days exploring the best scientific thinking in the world on the causes of obesity. From the start, it was plain that obesity presents a puzzle. Physiology, genes, and signals regulate the storage of energy in adipose tissue and thus obesity. But one thing was clear after 12 scientists through […]
October 17, 2022 — “This [obesity] is an important problem and we really still don’t know what causes it,” said John Speakman this morning to open a meeting of the Royal Society in London. Three days of presentations and discussion with some of the most brilliant scientists in the world lie ahead. It”s unfolding on YouTube and a dedicated […]
October 16, 2022 — It’s a fact. Healthcare professionals are human and so are their patients. So inevitably they will – regardless of their professionalism – encounter friction with some patients. These are patients who wind up being labeled “difficult” and all too often because of that label, receive care that is less than optimal. Physician Joan Naidorf says […]
October 15, 2022 — In GQ recently, Will Peischel asked if the world is ready for extremely effective weight-loss drugs. Of course, the simple answer is yes and no. First of all, it’s clear enough that most people don’t really understand these drugs or the condition they treat. Peischel makes that clear right up front when he calls them […]
October 14, 2022 — Let’s begin at the end. No. Everyone who loses weight does not regain it all. Nonetheless, it’s quite popular for folks to offer up that narrative if they want to sell the idea that obesity is normal and healthy and it’s worse than a waste of time for individuals to try to do something about […]
October 13, 2022 — Weight continues to be a subject for hot debate in popular culture. Most people live somewhere between the extremes of fat shaming and fat activism, just navigating life and sometimes feeling judged because of implicit ideas that people have about the normal human diversity of body size and shape. For population health, it’s indeed a […]
October 12, 2022 — In a typical day, most people really don’t move around that much. The simplest way of quantifying this is by counting steps and the average for an American adult is between three and four thousand per day. The default goal for improving on this became 10,000 steps – probably because an early pedometer called the […]
