Archive for the ‘Consumer Trends’ Category

Video Gaming, Not Exercise, Makes Your Brain Younger?

October 21, 2024 — “We conclude that exercise and video gaming have differential effects on the brain, which may help individuals tailor their lifestyle choices to promote mental and cognitive health, respectively, across the lifespan.” This conclusion comes from a preprint published on PsyArXiv. Science, health, and lifestyle reporters got even more bold with their conclusions. For instance, the […]

False Fears of a Flood of Obesity Medicine Use

October 20, 2024 — Headlines and health plans depict the demand for advanced obesity medicines in terms of mania or a stampede. “The Ozempic craze is booming in the United States,” says the University of Kentucky healthcare system. But is it reasonable to describe the people seeking these medicines as crazed? Or is this really an expression of false […]

FDA Flips the Switch Again on Tirzepatide Compounding

October 17, 2024 — On again, off again. With impressive nimbleness, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reversed course on tirzepatide compounding in large-scale pharmacy facilities. On October 2, they told those facilities to knock it off. Late last week, the agency told them to carry on – for now. FDA was responding to a lawsuit filed by compounding […]

Is the Fashion Industry Giving Up on Size Diversity?

October 15, 2024 — For several years, it looked like the fashion industry might be moving from promoting a “thin ideal” to making room for size diversity. In fact, France passed a law in 2017 to ban the use of models with unhealthy thinness in the industry. Vogue started producing an annual report in size inclusivity in 2023. But […]

Studies Yield Diverse Answers About Time-Restricted Eating

October 10, 2024 — After a recent cascade of diverse studies yielding seemingly different answers about time-restricted eating, FNCE this week provided an excellent opportunity to gain perspective from researchers who are serious about this subject. Krista Varady, Shuhao Lin, and Vicky Pavlou brought a much needed focus on the science behind this pop nutrition phenomenon. A Helpful Alternative […]

The Weight Watchers CEO Is Out – Is the Diet Industry Dead?

September 30, 2024 — The abrupt and immediate departure of Sima Sistani as CEO of Weight Watchers prompts us to ask: Is the diet industry dead? Weight Watchers grew from its origins in the early 1960s to become the iconic brand that dominated this field. For decades now, the popular impulse to reject diet culture has been growing. In […]

New Clothes, Better Food, Less Weight Watching, More Health

September 10, 2024 — Consumer spending is by far the biggest driver of U.S. economic growth. So you can be sure that businesses are paying close attention to the disruption in longstanding consumer behavior patterns that GLP-1 medicines are bringing. People are buying new clothes, better food, spending less on weight watching, and more on health. Make no mistake. […]

Obesity Care at Scale Will Profoundly Change Health Systems

September 6, 2024 — Think about it. Profound change is coming to healthcare and health systems because of the imperative for obesity care at scale. Right now, we are seeing only a faint glimmer of the changes that lie ahead. That’s because the biggest struggles with this change are very basic. Lilly and Novo Nordisk are straining to produce […]

ESC Congress: Everyone Now Claims the Disease of Obesity

September 4, 2024 — If nothing else, the ESC (European for Cardiology) Congress in London this week made one thing clear – everyone in mainstream medicine is now ready to claim the disease of obesity. Cardiologists all over the world are adopting a view we’ve been espousing here for decades. Obesity is not a lifestyle. Not a behavioral problem. […]

Rational and Irrational Exuberance About GLP-1 Medicines

September 2, 2024 — It’s true. We have been getting some pretty good news about GLP-1s lately. In persons with prediabetes and obesity, tirzepatide was 94% effective at preventing the development of diabetes. In the SELECT study, semaglutide for obesity might have cut COVID fatalities by a third. So a little exuberance about the potential of GLP-1 medicines is […]