June 11, 2023 — Health stigma presents a difficult problem because it prompts competing human impulses of cruelty and denial. Together, these impulses get in the way of better health. Attach stigma to a disease or a health condition and the people who have it begin to feel socially undesirable and isolated. So understandably, they may hide the condition, […]
January 1, 2022 — Should 2022 be the year that we turn over decision making to artificial intelligence? Writing in the Washington Post, Steven Zeitchik suggests it should. We could banish fears of making bad decisions, he says. But we beg to differ. A growing body of evidence tells us that computer systems can replicate the bad decisions we […]
October 23, 2021 — Jessica Nordell describes something like a quest in her new book, The End of Bias. “When I began this book, I thought I was writing a work of science. My plan was to read, study, synthesize the best evidence, and share what I found. The journey would be straightforward; it would be scientific and outward-facing […]
March 16, 2021 — Bias and stigma are not confined to obesity. And in fact, a considerable body of research tells us that far too many people with diabetes experience it and it is greatest in people who require insulin, have more difficulty controlling the disease, and have a higher BMI. Though stigma can be a problem for people […]
February 15, 2021 — This is not hard to see. But recognizing and dealing with effects of systemic racism in obesity care is not so easy. Black and Hispanic communities have a much higher prevalence of obesity and its complications. But they have much less access to effective obesity care. The outcomes for that care are worse in these […]
November 3, 2020 — Oddly enough, obesity can be a bit of an abstraction. Everybody thinks they know all about it. But in truth, the smartest people who study know how little we know. At the opening of ObesityWeek 2020, though, all that abstract science came face to face with humanity. Perhaps more than we’ve ever seen before, the […]
September 17, 2020 — Let’s face facts. We’re losing ground in control of blood pressure and thus in a key measure of heart health. A new study in JAMA last week documented a decline in U.S. rates of well-controlled blood pressure in 2018. This is a reversal of positive trends that spanned decades. This comes before the health impact […]
July 29, 2020 — Presumably, when people choose a career in healthcare, at least one of the motivations is to care for other people. So we might expect that along with caring comes respect in healthcare. But that is not a guarantee, apparently. For some providers, respecting diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, and size seems to be a challenge. […]
June 22, 2020 — We are in a moment when life and death and race and ethnicity are forcing conversations that White people politely avoid. It’s uncomfortable. But the brutal deaths of Black people at the hands of police have become impossible to ignore. And in the COVID-19 pandemic, Black and Latino people are dying in numbers that make […]
May 2, 2020 — Alternative facts are never helpful. This is especially true in the midst of a health crisis. People need actual, reliable facts to make good decisions – not a self-serving story. And yet, we see facts dismissed in discussions of discrimination, obesity, and COVID-19. Yet another large study emerged this week that points to real risks […]
