November 29, 2022 — Stigma serves as an anchor to policy for reducing obesity in Mexico and it renders those policies ineffective. That’s the view James René Jolin, Lauren Kim, Verónica Vázquez-Velázquez, and Fatima Cody Stanford eloquently present in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology this week. They write: “Recalibrating the prevailing approach to obesity is essential to counteract the stigma […]
November 28, 2022 — How important is the social dimension of physical activity? Recent modeling research published in PLOS One suggests that it’s critical. Ensela Mema and colleagues developed a mathematical model to estimate both social and non-social influences on physical activity across the population. They found that social influences were critical for maintaining physical activity or reducing sedentary […]
November 27, 2022 — A new systematic review prompts us to wonder once again, what is the point of public health interventions targeting obesity? Is it to nudge people toward desired behavior or is it health improvement? Sandrine Lioret and colleagues recently published a systematic review of efforts to improve behaviors or prevent obesity in children during their first […]
November 26, 2022 — Step right up and hear all about an amazing vegan diet study. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) churned out quite a PR masterpiece of hype recently. They randomized 244 people to either go on a diet or not. The diet was a ad libitum vegan diet and people cut 355 calories from their […]
November 25, 2022 — “Can’t never could.” This old bit of Southern American wisdom aptly describes one of the startling reactions to impressive progress in obesity treatment – “we can’t do this. It will cost too much.” This reaction has been part of the landscape of obesity care for some time, so it should not be startling. But when […]
November 23, 2022 — Whether or not it’s by intention, when and if parents try to talk with their children about body weight, it comes across as finger wagging. In fact, research published earlier this year tells us many youth never want their parents to talk about their weight – especially not their fathers. Parents might want to offer […]
November 22, 2022 — This is a note of gratitude to Julia Belluz. In a guest essay for the New York Times, she writes beautifully and accessibly about a great gap. It is the gap between science and popular culture in the matter of obesity. She does it while reporting on the recent Royal Society meeting about the causes […]
November 21, 2022 — Macronutrient explanations for obesity have had a rough ride. Too much fat was supposed to be the culprit. Then the focus turned to refined carbs and sugar. By themselves, those were not especially enlightening tangents for the public. Some people still push back on excessively fatty foods. Sugar still counts as a dietary bad actor. […]
November 20, 2022 — Fed up. That’s where we are with stories about how people taking semaglutide for obesity are keeping people with diabetes from getting an adequate supply of the drug they need. Fed up, because it’s a stealthy way of expressing implicit bias against people living with obesity. The subtext is that those people don’t really need […]
November 19, 2022 — Is healthcare indeed a place where a person can expect to receive genuine care? Or is the care in healthcare more of an abstract concept than something a patient might experience? A recent paper in Health Expectations tells us that most patients define a caring professional quite simply. They listen attentively. That was the response […]
