April 5, 2020 — Cease and desist. That’s our reaction to a rise of inane headlines about how to lose weight in the midst of a public health crisis. Smelling the potential for great clickbait, one reporter reached out to an expert in obesity, asking: Do we have a fatdemic coming our way? The DietDoctor offers up Six Tips […]
April 4, 2020 — Lies are convenient when the truth is unpleasant. Right now, we’re faced with a number of unpleasant truths, so lies are popping up like springtime flowers. The virus that’s plaguing us will “miraculously” disappear, says a politician. “Stock up on these nine healthy foods to boost your immune system,” says CNBC. Unfortunately, both of those […]
March 30, 2020 — This one falls into the category of a damned lie. We occasionally hear from people that COVID-19 doesn’t seem so bad if you consider that the seasonal flu kills tens of thousands of people every year. This lie is also a go-to strategy for politicians who want to deny the seriousness of the problem we […]
March 9, 2020 — Writing and reaching and talking with so many people as we do, we have the privilege to meet some really talented individuals. We recently met up with one such person, Melissa Joy Dobbins, in Budapest, of all places. Dobbins is a talented dietitian who has created one of the most successful podcasts about nutrition and […]
February 21, 2020 — Most often, when the media mangles science, the blame goes to the health reporter. Reporters either misinterpret the research or don’t think critically about how PR is spinning the results. But this week, we have an exceptional case of a top-tier journal publishing conclusions to a study that the data simply do not support. The […]
January 19, 2020 — It is a telling choice of words. More than half of black women over age 20 are categorized as obese, wrote Joseph Williams. Half of America will be considered obese within this decade, says Alyssa Bethencourt. Oliver Williams writes that 18.9 per cent of children in Year 6 are classified as overweight or obese. These […]
January 18, 2020 — Meat mayhem marches on in the arcane world of academic nutrition warfare. Humans have a tough time these days with diversity of thinking. Especially if the subject is nutrition. Or food policy. Thus, Rita Rubin served up a compelling account of the ongoing battles about meat in JAMA this week. Avoiding the Meat of the […]
January 9, 2020 — We ought to be the masters of our own fate. Pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. Get up and do what needs to be done. And you know what? Most people do their best. However, this little inspirational talk is no substitute for medical facts. And the fact is that obesity is a highly heritable, […]
December 22, 2019 — We’ve seen people get quite red in the face when they expound on the how toxic sugar is. Or on the necessity of taxing sugar sweetened beverages. So perhaps arguments about the subject of sugar are raising blood pressure. But no, contrary to a press release from the University of Toronto, sugar itself does not […]
November 29, 2019 — The PR team at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) hit a home run this week. They were playing in the ongoing contest to create the most misinformative but sizzling headlines about scientific research. Their winning headline was doozy: MRI reveals brain damage in obese teens. Of course, that misleading press release was only […]
