September 29, 2022 — What constitutes “healthy” for a packaged food? FDA, prompted by wrangling seven years ago, is out today with a new definition that everyone can fight about. Who cares? Well, just about everyone has an opinion. But the real passion for this subject comes from people who want to sell you more units of their food, […]
September 28, 2022 — The news is full of sound bites about obesity today. The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health is front and center. And the 44-page report that will guide today’s meeting has plenty of good stuff in it. Most notably, it reflects a better, albeit only partial, understanding that obesity is a complex chronic […]
September 26, 2022 — Something is up with our food supply that’s helping to drive the ever-rising prevalence of obesity. But the precise nature of the problem with the food supply is open for debate. People have many strong opinions. We’re too dependent on factory-farmed meat, say some people. Others are pushing for a food supply that promotes more […]
September 20, 2022 — Global food systems are putting more food – and more nutritious food – within within the reach of more people than ever before. But what are the outcomes for human and environmental health? For nutrition and equity? Frankly it’s a mixed picture. Food systems have evolved all over the world to crank out sufficient calories […]
September 19, 2022 — Will we ever tire of debating the value of eating breakfast for keeping our weight in check? So far, it seems not. In fact, people seem to be rehashing the same old arguments yet again, based on the results from a new study in Cell Metabolism. Is it a good idea to eat breakfast like […]
September 18, 2022 — One of the hottest concepts right now in dietary fashion is plant-based diets. It’s on the way to surpassing the dominant theme of the last two decades – low-carb diets. Thus, some really exceptional claims for the benefits of plant-based diets are popping up in scientific literature. Apart from the fanciful nature of some of […]
September 12, 2022 — In popular culture right now, it seems that ultra-processed foods are the bad boys. “Ultra-processed foods linked to heart disease, cancer, and death, studies show,” says one recent headline. Scary stuff, eh? Targeting ultra-processed foods for scorn wins approving nods. But even if it supports a favored narrative, looking closely at research on ultra-processed foods […]
September 11, 2022 — Candid conversations about obesity prevention can be difficult. Longstanding prevention strategies are not really working too well. “It’s so hard to change BMI at the population level,” said Marlene Schwartz of Yale’s Rudd Center recently at the National Academy of Sciences. She’s right. We know that many factors all around us are driving more obesity […]
September 10, 2022 — Is it possible to have objective dialogue about red meat and health? Is it easy to find? The simple answer is yes and no. In Lancet this year, a pair of letters tell the story of why it’s so hard. These letters concern weaknesses in a massive analysis of the global burden of disease from 2020 […]
September 8, 2022 — It really is becoming hard to remember just how we were clutching at straws to cope with the pandemic two years ago when all we had to prevent COVID was social distance and masks. No vaccines or Paxlovid. One of the straws we were clutching then was vitamin D. Both our ex-President and Tony Fauci […]
