July 25, 2021 — Healthcare and policies on obesity serve people with wealth and privilege. The disparities are great in the U.S. But they exist everywhere. Just look at childhood obesity in the U.K. Consider the ten percent of children with the most social and economic deprivation. They have three times higher rates of obesity compared to the ten […]
March 12, 2021 — Let them choose is a seductive maxim for guiding health policy. In one sense, it seems perfectly reasonable. You get to choose. We respect personal agency. But it can also be quite punitive. You made your choices, now you have a chronic disease. You’re on your own. Sorry. A new paper in the Future Healthcare […]
February 9, 2021 — Separate but (un)equal education was a concept the U.S. Supreme Court repudiated in 1954. However, separate and unequal healthcare is something that persists in the U.S. to this day. If you want a stark reminder, just take a look at the disparities in care that people get for obesity. Even more dire are the disparities […]
December 24, 2020 — Watching the pandemic of COVID-19 play out this year has given us an education in so many things. Will it prompt us to wrap our heads around a persistent pandemic of racism? Or shall we fall back on tired rhetoric? Racism has profound effects on health and lifespan for people of color. The facts are […]
December 1, 2020 — Today on the web, a CDC advisory committee – the ACIP – will vote on priority groups for getting the new coronavirus vaccine. Of course, deciding who goes first is a classic setup for conflict. But for now, the grumbles are pretty quiet. The UK published its COVID vaccination priorities last week and severe obesity […]
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 16, 2020 — For most people, it’s invisible. But looking at the world through the eyes of a well-informed person living with obesity, it’s easy to see. Healthcare is not for us. Obesity care is mostly out of reach. Bariatric surgery is for the privileged. In fact, new research from the University of Georgia tells us that people […]
July 14, 2020 — The interaction between COVID-19 and obesity is producing diverse responses. From some folks we hear denial. From elsewhere, we hear that concerns about obesity are expressions of racism. Still others will tell us that their favorite diet advice is the answer. Of course on Twitter, low-carb diets for COVID-19 are a hot topic today. But […]
July 4, 2020 — “I’m tired of people suggesting I should feel guilty about racism,” someone told us recently. That sentiment is a near-perfect expression of white fragility. Many people enjoy the unearned privileges of being white in a racist society. But they don’t like to think about it. Likewise, many people who are fit, able, and thin enjoy […]
March 17, 2020 — A pandemic such as COVID-19 has a way of raising difficult issues to confront. Questions about who’s at risk also raise issues about stigma and bias. On top of that, when the pandemic overruns our capacity for healthcare, triage becomes a reality. In Italy, physicians on the frontlines of this pandemic are facing difficult decisions […]
