December 23, 2012 — Prescription medication guides required by FDA are too complex to be useful to the patients they are intended to help, according to a study of suitability, readability, and comprehension published int the December issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Medication guides for patients are increasingly important, serving as a key tool to diminish potential medication […]
December 20, 2012 — Can government policies reverse the obesity epidemic? Or do such policies just provide examples of a nanny state over-reaching in futility? In a comprehensive report on obesity, The Economist suggests caution is in order. Everyone agrees the problem of obesity needs to be addressed. But we have little evidence for successful broad scale interventions. That […]
December 19, 2012 — The 2012 report from America’s Health Rankings suggests Americans are living longer but not necessarily living healthier. America’s Health Rankings, a partnership of American Public Health Association, the Partnership for Prevention and the United Healthcare Foundation, has updated this report every year since 1990, reports that life expectancy in the U.S. is now at 78.5 […]
December 18, 2012 — Yoni Freedhoff, obesity expert and health and nutrition blogger at Weighty Matters, recently found himself disinvited from speaking on health and nutrition policy at a food industry event by the Ontario Medical Association. Undaunted, he went to the web to share what he felt the food industry was trying to keep him from saying. Freedhoff is […]
December 17, 2012 — After years of increases, obesity rates in children have fallen in a number of cities across the U.S., giving scientists hope that the crisis has begun to level off. Declines have been reported in New York; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; Kearny, Nebraska; and Anchorage, Alaska. The drops are small — 5% in Philadelphia, 3% in Los […]
December 16, 2012 — With black women facing significantly higher rates of excess weight or obesity than the average American (4 out of 5 vs 2 out of 3), some people are taking action. After Surgeon General Regina Benjamin encouraged women to stop allowing concern about the look of their hair to keep them from exercising, actress Nicole Ari […]
December 15, 2012 — Obesity prevention strategies being implemented and those considered feasible and effective often do not follow evidence in the scientific literature. That was the finding from a survey of public health practitioners and policy-makers from government and non-government organizations across Victoria, Australia. The study asked practitioners and policy makers about their organizations’ current obesity prevention programs and policies, […]
December 14, 2012 — A recent Gallup poll shows that as Americans gain weight, their perception of ideal weight rises too. In the poll, which was conducted in 1991, 1999, and every year since 2001, men’s perception of the average ideal weight has risen 14 pounds, from 171 to 185, as their actual average self-reported weight has risen from […]
December 13, 2012 — Your visual memory of what you ate may play a bigger role in your feelings of fullness several hours after a meal than how much you actually ate, says a new study from British researchers published in PLOS One. The researchers showed 100 people a picture of either a 300 ml serving of cream of […]
December 12, 2012 — After access to healthcare and the cost of healthcare, obesity is the country’s greatest health concern, say Americans in a just-released Gallup poll. One in six Americans named obesity. That’s up from one in seven earlier this year and one in a hundred in 1999, demonstrating the rise in the prevalence of the disease as […]
