February 4, 2023 — In the realm of food, boogeymen come and go. But right now, the bad actor with staying power in global diets seems to be ultra-processed, industrially formulated, and hyper-marketed foods. What’s not to hate about them? There’s plenty of observational data, and even some good experimental data to make us suspicious. It gives us good […]
December 22, 2022 — More 50 years ago, John Cleese ran the Ministry of Silly Walks for a skit on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. He interviewed a grant applicant who had a silly walk and told Cleese that “with government backing I could make it very silly.” Now this little exercise has made it from the Ministry of Silly […]
November 27, 2022 — A new systematic review prompts us to wonder once again, what is the point of public health interventions targeting obesity? Is it to nudge people toward desired behavior or is it health improvement? Sandrine Lioret and colleagues recently published a systematic review of efforts to improve behaviors or prevent obesity in children during their first […]
October 12, 2022 — In a typical day, most people really don’t move around that much. The simplest way of quantifying this is by counting steps and the average for an American adult is between three and four thousand per day. The default goal for improving on this became 10,000 steps – probably because an early pedometer called the […]
September 25, 2022 — An impressive amount of thought and effort goes into messaging about health. Honorable people work diligently to move the population toward healthier lives. They craft messages for leading people to stop smoking, get their vaccinations, eat healthy, stay active and fit. The creativity and strategic skill are impressive. But one dimension of effective and sustainable […]
March 6, 2022 — The law of the instrument suggests that the tool at hand when a problem presents itself seems like the right one to use. When all we have is a hammer, everything looks a bit more like a nail. So we pound it. And in the healthy living industry (aka wellness) we have quite a hammer. […]
October 31, 2021 — Many fears are plaguing us right now. A virus is still killing more than five thousand people every day around the world – more than a thousand daily in the U.S. Some people are fearful of spending time indoors with others who are unmasked or unvaccinated. Others are fearful of the masks and the vaccines. […]
March 27, 2021 — In the new issue of Childhood Obesity, Sarah Armstrong and Ted Kyle tell us the time has come to stop screening for obesity in school. The reason is simple. This screening harms children, but offers them no benefit. Telling a child or the child’s parent they are fat doesn’t help. It does nothing for their […]
February 14, 2021 — Good cardiovascular health is simple, says the American Heart Association. Just follow Life’s Simple 7. It’s the AHA’s trademark guide to good health. Four ideal health behaviors and three ideal health metrics. The metrics are cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood glucose. The behaviors are eating healthy, being active, not smoking, and having a BMI less […]
February 12, 2021 — Once again, we see the impulse rise to catastrophize obesity. A new study in BMC Public Health offers up a comparison of deaths due to smoking and adiposity. So naturally, this sparks splashy headlines. Obesity kills more than smoking! Scary stuff. But not terribly helpful. Because the subtext of this sort of hype is finger […]
