October 9, 2017 — Do you think the primary risks of obesity are diabetes and heart disease? Well, perhaps you should think again. The link between obesity and cancer clearly deserves your attention. A new report published in the CDC MMWR examines trends in cancers associated with obesity. Brooke Steele and colleagues found that 40% of all cancers diagnosed in […]
June 22, 2017 — We have a complex, chronic disease in our midst. It’s a challenging puzzle. It develops over time. This disease debilitates people and dramatically diminishes the quality of their lives. It comes in many forms and it’s tough to cure. We’d rather prevent it and we’re finding ways to do that. But with millions of people […]
January 21, 2017 — Let’s get something straight. We do not know the answers to obesity. This observation is neither bad nor good. It’s simply true. U.S. News offers a harsh assessment of progress against obesity during the Obama administration: Obesity increased overall despite an administration that made addressing it a priority. Progress against obesity has been limited, and rates […]
December 4, 2015 — Remember Ebola? That was so 2014. But with that problem solved, Americans are turning their attention back to obesity, which is again at the top of the list of the most urgent health concerns for adults in the U.S. This insight comes to us courtesy of the Gallup Organization, which has been polling the public about their […]
September 24, 2015 — Is obesity a neurologic or a metabolic disease? Truthfully it’s a condition that defies tidy definitions, perhaps because it comes in many different forms. But in the past few weeks, we’ve been treated to a stream of new studies that relate obesity to brain health. A new study in Molecular Psychiatry found a significant risk […]
January 10, 2015 — Obesity sits atop the list of diseases that Americans worry about. (We’ll set aside the matter of Ebola for now.) And yet people have a hard time wrapping their heads around obesity as a disease. Some equate obesity with BMI or body size and protest that BMI can’t be a disease. Others say obesity is […]
April 12, 2014 — Now that we have your attention, you can think again. Rest assured that headlines about lower risk of cancer death for people with age-related declines in memory and thinking does not mean that thinking causes cancer. In fact, it means that you need to think hard about the steady diet of headlines touting this or […]
January 23, 2013 — Death rates continue to decline for most cancers in the United States, but for certain cancers associated with obesity and tied to human papilloma virus (HPV), rates have risen. The CDC, National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, and North American Association of Central Cancer Registries published a report in the Journal of the National Cancer […]
December 19, 2012 — The 2012 report from America’s Health Rankings suggests Americans are living longer but not necessarily living healthier. America’s Health Rankings, a partnership of American Public Health Association, the Partnership for Prevention and the United Healthcare Foundation, has updated this report every year since 1990, reports that life expectancy in the U.S. is now at 78.5 […]
November 3, 2012 — November 6, 2012 — In October, The Obesity Society began laying the groundwork for a caucus focused on obesity by reaching out to every senate office. Caucuses are groups of congressional members who band together to advocate or vote for shared policy interests. Caucuses have been established for a wide range of health issues including […]
