Follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health policy and obesity
September 25, 2018 — Weight Watchers has just performed a neat trick. It lost a ton of dead weight and gained 4.5 percent on its stock price. All in one day. Henceforth, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers shall be simply WW. Wellness that Works.™ A Long Time Coming The handwriting has been on the wall for years […]
September 24, 2018 — The USPSTF is one of those acronyms that provides a good test of sobriety. If you can say it five times quickly, you’re either completely sober or a hopeless health policy geek. It stands for the United States Preventive Services Task Force. Last week, the task force affirmed that primary care providers should refer adults […]
September 23, 2018 — Brian Wansink has a gift for conceiving research into eating behavior that has long been “catnip for the media.” Now, after a year of contesting accusations of misconduct, he’s resigned from Cornell University. Last week, JAMA retracted six of his papers in a single day. According to Retraction Watch, that makes a total of 13 […]
September 22, 2018 — Yesterday, we had the privilege of participating in a remarkable forum in San Francisco. The Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH) assembled a diverse group of experts and employers. Together, we considered how healthcare addresses obesity. We gained a view of how employers can innovate on obesity care. Obesity Might Break the System For a […]
September 21, 2018 — Perhaps your mother told you cleanliness is next to godliness. That concept found its way into a 1778 sermon by John Wesley. But it’s even older than that. Ancient Babylonian and Hebrew religious texts have the earliest references. Now, CMAJ wants to put cleanliness next to obesity. Could there be a clean connection? An Association with […]
September 20, 2018 — Ready or not, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans are coming our way in 2020. In the midst of our polarized politics, you can be sure that this round will have some difficult twists and turns. No More One Size Fits All The new dietary guidelines will follow a life stage approach. USDA and HHS organized […]
September 19, 2018 — Time-restricted eating is a popular concept right now. So naturally it’s great clickbait. Some journals and researchers are happy to seize the opportunity to gain attention. Newly published in the Journal of Nutritional Science, we have an especially sharp example. Jonathan Johnston is grabbing sensational headlines with his study of 13 people for ten weeks. […]
September 18, 2018 — Knowledge is power, right? So why doesn’t nutrition education – by itself – resolve our problems with obesity? Maybe we just haven’t tried hard enough. Or maybe knowledge is helpful. But it’s insufficient for overcoming obesity. Just like any other disease. A test of health promotion for Turkish children with obesity provides an good case study. […]
September 17, 2018 — How can it be that both obesity and hunger are rising in Africa? President Rajiv Shah of the Rockefeller Foundation tells us that it’s the inevitable result of a broken global food system. Famines still ravage this continent. But incomes are also rising in the growing urban centers. And that’s precisely where obesity taking off. […]
September 16, 2018 — Perhaps the backlash against decades of faulty low-fat dietary guidelines is peaking. It’s now popular to suggest that bad dietary advice in the 1980s sparked the epidemic of obesity that’s still booming today. But like so many other glib proclamations on the subject, this one is probably wrong. Or at the very least, it glosses […]
