November 11, 2023 — It has long been a struggle – one of confronting the biological reality of obesity while claiming autonomy and embracing our own identity. Having our eyes wide open about obesity and health while we tell people who want to impose their judgments on us to buzz off. This is my body and my life. Puritans […]
November 8, 2023 — Public health experts have long been accounting for it. People are living in larger bodies. Better than 40% of U.S. adults have a body weight in the range of obesity. But new reporting from JoNel Aleccia for the Associated Press tells us that pharma and the FDA are not yet accounting for this fact. It’s […]
November 7, 2023 — A lifetime of exposure to endocrine disruptors can begin before a person is even born, and may put that person on a path to obesity and health complications. This is the implication of a new study in Environmental Health Perspectives. First author Parisa Montazeri explains: “Our findings underscore the potential impact of early-life chemical exposures […]
November 5, 2023 — We’ve got this. “We know what works to prevent obesity.” This is a refrain public health experts repeat often on the subject of obesity and childhood obesity in particular. But it reminds us that there’s a stark line between confidence and competence – especially in dealing with obesity. Unfortunately people mistake confidence for competence all […]
November 2, 2023 — Over the past 20 years or so, there has been growing concern that many research results published in scientific journals can’t be reproduced. Depending on the field of research, studies have found efforts to redo published studies lead to different results in between 23% and 89% of cases. To understand how different researchers might arrive […]
October 29, 2023 — Unassailable definitions of healthy food and healthy eating are elusive. Is whole milk a healthy beverage? Or one that should be banned from school lunches? We have great sympathy for the task that the scientific advisory committee for the 2025 edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans has taken on. But what if perceptions of healthy […]
October 27, 2023 — This week’s unexpected result in diet and health comes from PLOS One. In a study of mortality and diabetes risk from added sugar in coffee or tea researchers found nothing. No incremental risk attributable to sugar in coffee or tea. But if you check with CDC, there’s no distinction for those packets of sugar people […]
October 26, 2023 — It’s like some kind of holy grail. Obesity prevalence keeps rising and everyone (including ourselves) wants to know why. So headlines saying “major study claims to identify the root cause of obesity” really do grab our attention. News reports are pelting us with headlines saying fructose drives obesity. The only trouble is, the headlines are […]
October 25, 2023 — It’s a popular cause. Red meat production is a problem for the climate. Add that to ethical concerns some people have about consuming meat, and the push to reduce red meat consumption makes total sense. But when people start spinning misleading narratives about observational research and using them to promote this otherwise worthy idea, they’re […]
October 23, 2023 — It’s a “deficit of information” we should correct, says FDA Commissioner Robert Califf. He is speaking about the gap in information about how to correctly dose drugs for people living with obesity. Karen Weintraub, reporting for USA Today, tells us this gap might mean that doctors are prescribing the right drug at the wrong dose […]
