Posts Tagged ‘false narratives’

Is Obesity Dropping Due to GLP-1s? No and No

October 11, 2024 — Misinformation about obesity trends has us a little cranky. For example, Reason Magazine is telling us, “Obesity in the U.S. is finally declining. You can (probably) thank Ozempic.” This is wrong on both counts. First and most basic, two data points do not make a trend. The latest NHANES data on obesity shows that the […]

The Persistent Irritant of Implicit Ignorance About Obesity

August 4, 2024 — Warning: this is a bit of a rant, albeit a good-natured one. The persistent irritant of implicit ignorance about obesity confronts us in virtually every dialogue we have about obesity. Sometimes it gets to be too much. Specifically, it is the presumption woven into almost every conversation about obesity, that obesity is all about bad […]

Phones, Social Media, Mental Health, and Obesity

May 26, 2024 — Skimming the headlines, it would be easy to think that the combination of mobile phones and social media are responsible for quite a range of our current ills – including mental health and obesity. If you want to dig deeper, you can find a whole tome on the subject from Jonathan Haidt. He has woven […]

Success in Reducing Self-Stigma

May 22, 2023 — Despite a great deal of progress in recognizing weight bias and stigma, many challenges remain in overcoming it. Explicit expressions of weight bias no longer get a free pass. So they are becoming less common. But implicit weight bias is as strong as ever. Perhaps even more challenging is the weight bias that people direct […]

False Comparisons of Smoking and Obesity

November 13, 2022 — Analogies are a powerful tool to build a story and persuade people to adopt a preferred course of action. When it comes to policies to reduce obesity, one of the most frequent analogies employed is tobacco policy. Earlier this year, Sarah Hill and colleagues made the case for health policy to align the regulation of […]