November 5, 2025 — On the opening day of ObesityWeek yesterday, we got quite a treat in a passionate debate of the Lancet Commission report on clinical obesity. Four of our favorite people – Sue Yanovski, Bob Kushner, Fatima Cody Stanford, and Donna Ryan – participated and made it memorable. We walked away with a clear understanding that many […]
November 1, 2025 — We’re packing our bags and scanning the meeting app for ObesityWeek in Atlanta, November 4-7. This promises to be a very intense week, with the biggest attendance yet for this signature meeting of the Obesity Society. The agenda for the week has a lot of options and we are still processing them all. But for […]
October 17, 2025 — When it comes to obesity, it seems everyone is looking for clickbait. Facts are incidental. So this week, we have wildly differing news headlines about U.S. obesity prevalence. The Harvard Gazette tells us we have an “astounding surge” in obesity prevalence. Axios tells us there’s “good news” on obesity prevalence. Where does the truth lie? […]
October 4, 2025 — Six years after the original EAT-Lancet report, the team behind this report is back with a sequel. Tamara Lucas and Richard Horton published a commentary to accompany the report. They note the critical feedback on the original edition. And they suggest those critiques may have had an ever so slightly humbling effect on the Commission: […]
September 3, 2025 — The magical Mirror of Erised can drive people mad by showing them their deepest desires. Judging by the flood of papers in recent days, it seems that one such desire is to find consensus for a clinical definition of obesity. In the past week alone, three such publications have crossed our screens. In the past […]
July 20, 2025 — Six months have passed since the Lancet Commission on the definition of clinical obesity aimed to “settle the ongoing dispute around the idea of obesity as a disease.” At the time, we had doubts about this new definition “settling” disputes about defining obesity. Indeed, we have seen lots of vigorous discussion, but not a lot […]
May 20, 2025 — A new viewpoint in JAMA Pediatrics articulates a concern we hear repeatedly about the Lancet Commission on Clinical Obesity. Pediatric obesity experts have reservations about applying the concept of preclinical obesity in pediatrics. Melania Manco is a professor of pediatrics, clinical research scientist, and consultant endocrinologist at the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome. She writes: […]
April 21, 2025 — It is really easy to beat up on the lowly BMI. The Lancet Commission on clinical obesity gently kicked it to the curb by saying BMI “can both overestimate and underestimate adiposity” and thus declared its obsolescence as a singular measure for excess adiposity. “Excess adiposity should be confirmed by either direct measurement of body […]
February 15, 2025 — It would be hard to dispute that we are living in an age of cynicism. Distrust is all around – especially when the subject is health. Thus, it should not be a surprise that consensus about diagnosing obesity turns out to be quite a challenge. And yet, we are surprised that a global consensus on […]
January 28, 2025 — It is fascinating to watch the public discourse about newly proposed criteria from the Lancet Commission for a clinical diagnosis of obesity unfold. The headline is easy. “It’s time to move beyond BMI alone.” The response to that idea has been clear and unmistakable: “What took so long?” But then comes the hard part that […]
