January 6, 2024 — We are hearing a cacophony lately – lots of noise about food noise. Part of what we hear is a celebration. Some people are finding blessed relief from it when they take advanced medicines for obesity like semaglutide or tirzepatide. Others see a threat in the relief that those people are finding. They deny that […]
July 2, 2023 — The impulse to attach health claims to food is growing stronger among many advocates and agencies for food and health policy. The FDA is moving to put nutrition information on the front of food packages. This news comes in addition to the agency’s seven-year quest to define healthy for food marketing claims. The Food Is […]
December 6, 2022 — The fix is in press this week for our terrible eating habits. In Nature Medicine, Pao-Hwa Lin and Crystal Tyson review a new RCT of interventions in food stores that they believe point the way to “fixing America’s eating habits.” They write: “Today, more than half of all adults in the USA have one or […]
November 24, 2022 — Much research goes into understanding how our environment prompts relentlessly rising problems with obesity – with good reason. Much of that research focuses on the substance of the food itself. The characteristics of ultra-processed food is a favorite topic right now. So we find delight in recent research that focuses instead on the broader context […]
April 1, 2022 — New research today tells us that water is more important than food for good health. Scientists from the Westphal Academy for Systematic Study of Exogenous Rehydration (WASSER) hailed it as a “landmark.” The study was a three-arm, randomized crossover study. It appears today in the American Journal of Food Policy. In a random order, 100 […]
December 2, 2021 — The word diet originates from the Greek dieta meaning to live normally. However, nowadays it mostly refers to restricting food to help weight loss rather than a way to enjoy food and health. Throughout history diets have come and gone. Celebrity diets are popular and often bizarre, but are not a new thing. The Daniel […]
November 21, 2021 — In her new book, How the Other Half Eats, Priya Fielding-Singh tells us good nutrition comes in many forms. But the dominant culture often presents a narrow definition of a healthy diet. This happens because we often fix our attention on the merits and faults of specific foods or nutrients. She writes: “Certain items are […]
November 25, 2020 — Implicit bias about obesity is a funny thing. In the middle of a conversation about it, someone tells us, “Sure, it’s biological. But you can’t just go eating burgers and fries all the time.” Invite people to share their thoughts about obesity and you get images of a mom gorging herself on a ridiculous burger. […]
September 28, 2020 — The CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, is offering up wisdom for the world on obesity in the New York Times. The whole world is getting fat, he says. But according to him, it’s definitely not a problem of access to healthful foods: “People have got to become wiser about their food choices. And if […]
September 9, 2020 — Eight years of change packed into one month. COVID-19 has changed food shopping. All of a sudden, everything about the ways we hunt and gather our meals is different. For one thing, we’re making fewer trips and more clicks. But we’re buying more and buying in new ways. Professor Anna Nagurney tells the New York […]
