News Archive for January, 2023

There’s an ugly accident at the intersection of U.S. drug prices, health insurance, and obesity. In a report yesterday, NPR reporter Allison Aubrey described how people living with obesity, after finding at long last that they have an option to get their medical condition under control, learn that they’re at the mercy of excessive drug […]

Are we reaching a point where the reductive assumptions embedded in dietary recommendations are more confusing than helpful? A new paper in Scientific Reports begs this question. Yutang Wang and colleagues find evidence that polyunsaturated fatty acids are associated with a small reduction in cardiovascular mortality in the general population of the U.S., but not […]

Reading about the heated and not terribly well-reasoned arguments people are having about obesity prompts a sad conclusion. A history of ineffective and, at times, harmful anti-obesity campaigns may have poisoned the well of public sentiment about obesity. People have such strong feelings that facts and reason become irrelevant. Aggrieved Advocates for People with Eating […]

When curiosity fades, research ceases to be science and becomes an exercise in advocacy. That advocacy might be for a commercial interest or it might be for a presumably good cause. But in either case, it’s not sound scientific research with the aim of finding the true answer to a clear question. It is a […]

We count on newspapers for coming up with sensational headlines to inflame passions. Opinion pages seldom disappoint. But those flames of passion very often bring more heat than light. Such was the case yesterday when the New York Times published a sensational headline for an opinion article by a HAES activist, Virginia Sole-Smith. She wants […]

An impressive new study in Obesity, with up to 40 years of follow-up, confirms that the benefit of a longer life after bariatric surgery is durable, but it comes with certain risks. The authors of this study, led by Ted Adams, explain: “Results of this study attest to the decades-long durability of bariatric surgery in […]

When a medical condition starts to define how we see ourselves, the conversation about it gets messy. Is this a health concern? Or is it about appearance and vanity? Is concern about obesity something for the few and the wealthy? Or something that profoundly affects the health of a large segment of the population across […]

These are three problems that often travel together. But each one by itself is a problem – stigma, obesity, and heart disease. Now, a new study from the University of Connecticut gives us some of the best empiric evidence yet for the distinct harm that weight stigma adds to obesity and heart disease. Randomized and […]

In plain view, we have an interesting study of contrasts in cultural concepts for healthy eating. Americans have our Food and Drug Administration looking for criteria it can use to award a claim of “healthy” to some foods and not to others. For example, a freshly baked French baguette won’t qualify. Not enough whole grain. […]

When the American Academy of Pediatrics released its clinical guideline for obesity, it put a spotlight on an odd kind of zero sum thinking. For people promoting this line of thought, the presumption seems to be that parents, advocates, and health professionals have to pick sides. Which is more worthy of our attention – eating […]