January 20, 2023 — USDA yesterday appointed 20 nationally recognized nutrition and public health experts to serve on the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. We find good reason for cheers about these appointments – not just because these are some brilliant people – but also because we see them bringing diverse thinking on dietary guidance to this process. Diverse […]
January 14, 2023 — Defining healthy eating is somewhat like trying to define art. Everyone thinks they know it when they see it, but actually pinning it down in specific terms is not so easy. Nonetheless, we keep on trying and much of the focus from thoughtful people is on healthy patterns of eating, not individual foods. The exemplar […]
June 8, 2022 — This is definitely a season of renewed meetings. This week, we’ve been trying to follow both the ASMBS and ADA annual meetings at once. New information is flooding out of both of them. Today, from ASMBS, comes a fascinating new study of perceptions about weight bias across diverse racial and ethnic groups. People with White, […]
April 23, 2022 — The buzzwords are flying. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is such a common theme that all you have to say is “DEI” and people will nod solemnly. The same goes for social determinants of health – SDOH. However, the Northeast Business Group on Health (NEBGH) has gone further to connect the two and identify some real […]
April 3, 2022 — Policies to address obesity across the whole population often make perfect sense to the people who are promoting them. But often, they run into resistance from people looking at obesity from a very different place. Writing in the Guardian, Clare Finney offers a case in point: “For the 1.25 million men and women with eating […]
February 10, 2022 — What is it about body weight and obesity that activates so many people in so many different ways? As people weigh the rituals of body weight, the reactions may be very different, but they are often just as intense as they are diverse. In the Washington Post today, Fortesa Latifi writes with intensity about telling […]
November 14, 2021 — It’s hard to miss the zeal that people bring to matters of health, wellness, and fitness. We’re part of it. Believing that health systems should, can, and will do better in helping folks with obesity, we devote silly amounts of time to writing about it daily. The motivation is simply to share information that might […]
December 22, 2020 — We are learning the hard way that information alone does not persuade people in matters of health. This is because trust is essential. Mistrust of public health messages about COVID-19 is killing people. A new study in Annals of Internal Medicine tells us how potent the combination of information and trust can be. It is […]
December 11, 2020 — If you want to take a swipe at dietitians, you’d better be ready for some blowback. But the New York Times gave it a go this week with a caricature of the profession. Does the profession pay adequate attention to diversity in nutrition, body types, and lives? Times reporter Priya Krishna tells us no. She […]
November 13, 2020 — We have some screwy ideas about food, nutrition, weight, and health. So naturally, we can fight about it in education. OMG! What are they teaching my child about nutrition and health at school? Today, the New York Times frets that teachers may be teaching children to diet. Welcome to a new chapter of culture wars […]
