January 20, 2022 — After four decades of agitation about childhood obesity it seems like we might safely assume that scientists can measure and track it with confidence. But it turns out that this is not exactly true. Why? Because of flaws in something called the BMI z-score. Body fat quite normally changes in children with age. What’s healthy […]
January 19, 2022 — A new study in Obesity tells us that telehealth can work just fine in obesity care. But what will the future hold? Payers and patients will likely have their their say. Already, telehealth businesses have had quite a bumpy ride. A prime example would be Teledoc, which saw its stock soar from $83 per share […]
January 18, 2022 — It is something of an underground PR triumph. What has long been a season of short-lived diets and unused gym memberships now seems to be a season for mindfulness and intuitive eating. It is a season for beating up on diet culture instead of beating up on ourselves. A descriptive title for the mood of […]
January 17, 2022 — The track record for preventing obesity in childhood is not especially impressive. Could it improve with objective measures to identify babies most at risk for obesity as they grow up? A new study of data from the INSIGHT program has found a new polygenic risk score that might help with this. There’s just one little […]
January 15, 2022 — A new study this week in the New England Journal of Medicine brought home a basic fact. Severe illness and deaths from COVID in adolescents are almost entirely preventable. This is especially true for youth with conditions – like obesity – that would otherwise put them at risk. In a case-control study of 1,222 adolescents, […]
January 13, 2022 — The numbers are stark. More than 80 percent of Americans with diabetes are not meeting clinical targets to reduce heart disease risk. For people with both diabetes and obesity, more than 90 percent are bearing unnecessary risk. These numbers come from a new scientific statement in Circulation from the American Heart Association. On top of […]
January 12, 2022 — It’s been a long haul. But suddenly, we’re seeing a lot of optimism about anti-obesity medicines. Skeptics are yielding to stubborn facts about the impact of obesity on health. They are also yielding to good clinical data about the benefits of sound obesity care. So, too, are they seeing that newer generations of anti-obesity medicines […]
January 11, 2022 — Some of the biggest and most read stories of 2021 were about new and better insights into human metabolism. Now it looks like the flood of information will flow into 2022. Already we have two new papers to digest. One, from evolutionary biologist Thomas Kraft and colleagues, offers new thinking on how humans evolved to […]
January 10, 2022 — Many of us are on an anxious journey right now. We know that being older, or living with a condition like obesity, means added risks for COVID. So we’ve been careful. But now the Omicron variant adds a bit of uncertainty because it is so contagious and so many people are getting the infection. Yet, […]
January 9, 2022 — “Know that BMI is BS.” On NPR’s Life Kit podcast, that’s the advice for coping with the boogeyman of diet culture. Whatever diet culture is, in this season of anxiety about weight and health, it certainly seems to be on the minds of many influencers. So if one defines diet culture as a preoccupation with […]
