January 17, 2023 — The food policy spin machine was in overdrive a few years ago, promoting food labeling policies enacted in Chile. “Latin America’s war on obesity could be a model for U.S.,” gushed the Washington Post. Pointing to a new study in PLOS Medicine, Barry Popkin told the Post that the food labeling law in Chile was […]
August 20, 2022 — Fast food and junk food are slippery and pejorative terms that many people equate with a risk of obesity. Most people – even people who routinely consume it – presume that fast food is not good for health. With the release of Super Size Me in 2004, we seemed to hit a peak in the […]
September 10, 2021 — A new study in the September issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition asks an important question. Are Americans eating more junk food? Cutting right to the chase, the answer is no. Adults actually report eating less in 2018 than they did in 2011. Children haven’t changed their habits. Adults are getting 13 percent […]
October 15, 2020 — The list of ways we woulda, coulda, shoulda prevented obesity keeps growing. In PLOS Medicine this week, another study is spawning headlines about a really effective tool for preventing obesity. The claim is that banning ads for unhealthy food can do the trick. The headlines are promising. For example, PLOS issued a press release that […]
January 10, 2019 — A new report in the BMJ tells us Coca Cola is controlling health policy in China – as it relates to physical activity and obesity. Harvard professor Susan Greenhalgh says: The company has cleverly manoeuvered itself into a position of behind-the-scenes power that ensures that government policy to fight the growing obesity epidemic does not undermine its […]
November 13, 2018 — Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Mark Twain understood this bit of wisdom. Thus we felt his influence at a session yesterday on food addiction at ObesityWeek 2018 in Nashville. Sandwiched between three scientists, we enjoyed an engaging presentation by a journalist with a good story to tell. It’s […]
January 19, 2018 — Call it “a modest proposal” if you like. But the authors probably don’t intend this to be satire. Writing in the American Journal of Public Health, Jennifer Pomeranz and colleagues tell us that we can tax junk food all across America anytime we want to. They offer a wry conclusion. “Political feasibility in the current political […]
April 26, 2017 — Why are we living with so much obesity? If you ask the public, this question has different answers in different cultures. New data, being presented today at the Canadian Obesity Summit in Banff, suggests that addictive junk food is an especially popular explanation for the problem – especially with Brazilians and French Canadians. Different Beliefs in Brazil, […]
November 11, 2015 — Oscar Wilde long ago warned about the risks of assuming. But that doesn’t put a dent in some deeply held assumptions about what causes obesity. We lived through decades of nutrition policy that assumed excess fat in the diet was responsible for obesity and a host of other chronic diseases. Now we know that those […]
October 16, 2015 — Charlie Greer was right when he was pitching his famous line: “Where money talks, nobody walks.” So it is that $2 million from a doughnut fundraiser led the North Carolina Children’s Hospital to rename its clinic to become the “Krispy Kreme Challenge Children’s Specialty Clinic.” Seriously. Never in a million years would we make this […]
