April 7, 2025 — Efforts to improve global nutrition often run up against an inescapable truth: poverty, more than preference, limits healthy food choices. Two new studies highlight the complexity of this challenge and suggest that simply making nutritious foods more available or promoting dietary change isn’t enough – especially for the world’s poorest communities. Healthy Nutrition Out of […]
May 20, 2024 — Two updated analyses from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study came out in the Lancet over the weekend. They bring a very specific lens to the problem of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their looming implications for global health. Through this lens, the focus is on risk factors – high BMI and high blood glucose […]
February 22, 2024 — Scholars have noted that in lower income countries, obesity can be taken as a signal of wealth. This observation in turn fuels a presumption that weight stigma might not be a problem in countries of the Global South. But a new scoping review in Obesity Facts suggests this presumption is likely false. Laura Eggerichs, Oliver […]
October 20, 2023 — Cultural norms regarding body image vary all around the world. Likewise, priorities and perspectives about health are quite variable, too. So we find it quite remarkable that a global view of the difficult issue of weight stigma emerged this week with leadership from the World Obesity Federation in Obesity Reviews. We note that, with the […]
April 6, 2023 — The agendas people have for food and eating behaviors can make us dizzy. One rallying cry is that food is medicine. Presumably, that makes eating therapeutic. But not if we do it in a problematic way. Then we have an eating disorder. In fact, recent analyses of data from the Global Burden of Disease say […]
October 6, 2022 — For the last two days we’ve been gathered with a small group of passionate advocates from all over the world, finding ways to collaborate for progress in health policy related to obesity. The change comes in increments. Obesity relates to cultures, food, and health systems that differ significantly all over the world. So finding a […]
September 20, 2022 — Global food systems are putting more food – and more nutritious food – within within the reach of more people than ever before. But what are the outcomes for human and environmental health? For nutrition and equity? Frankly it’s a mixed picture. Food systems have evolved all over the world to crank out sufficient calories […]
July 9, 2022 — Obesity prevalence is rising all over the world. But in different cultures and different countries, tremendous variations in obesity are striking. Countries of eastern Asia tend to have very low obesity prevalence. Japan, for example, has an obesity rate of just five percent, according to the World Obesity Federation. Meanwhile, obesity prevalence stands at 43 […]
February 11, 2022 — “Whether you like it or not, processed food is here to stay,” says professor Ciarán Forde. But wait, Barry Popkin writes that we must “reverse the rapid shift to diets dominated by a stage of high ultra-processed food intake” if we want to stem the global tide of non-communicable diseases arising from obesity. The dominant […]
August 27, 2021 — Over the last three decades, high blood pressure has doubled around the world, driven in large part by obesity and poverty. These conclusions come from a new study published this week in Lancet. Obesity, a key risk factor for hypertension, is growing all over the world. But high income countries have been able to control […]
