January 19, 2025 — Narratives in health reporting tend to cluster. This is how we get diet fads. It’s also why stories about how bad BMI is have gotten enough traction to drive people to extreme views about it. Lately, we’ve noticed a new cluster forming. Let’s call it the premature death notices for diet and exercise. In Vox […]
December 27, 2024 — Diet and exercise is a dominant concept in obesity care that’s in the midst of an identity crisis. In The Atlantic, Daniel Engber sums up one point of view, writing: “Ozempic killed diet and exercise. Doctors might be slow to admit it, but Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs are making dieting and exercise obsolete.” While […]
February 16, 2024 — Influencers are not doctors. They can’t understand the science issues with obesity drugs. That’s not what they do. With expressive skill, a leading influencer in the fat acceptance movement put her finger on an important issue in the Washington Post this week. On this, we totally agree. If we listen to many social media influencers, […]
December 21, 2023 — No two ways about it. This has been a big year of milestones in obesity and health. We and many others are still processing what we have witnessed in these past 12 months. But one way to gain perspective is to look at 2023 stats for the posts on ConscienHealth that you, a wise group […]
December 15, 2023 — It’s long been overdue. For as long as we can remember, one presumption has been dominant. The real cure for obesity is (supposed to be) a change in lifestyle. It is the “foundation of obesity treatment” says just about everyone, even today. But the sand underneath that foundation is shifting. So the time has come […]
May 9, 2022 — This is a big unresolved question for clinical researchers in obesity. When does obesity care bring a longer life? On one hand, it’s pretty clear that people live longer if they have bariatric surgery. But on the other hand, there’s the null result from the Look AHEAD study. It was a big, expensive study of […]
April 16, 2021 — We are on the cusp of great progress for anti-obesity medicines. Writing in Cell Metabolism, Fiona Gribble and Stephen O’Rahilly call it the end of the beginning. They have high hopes for new medications to treat obesity – one of the most common and difficult chronic diseases we face. But these advances fly in the […]
March 3, 2020 — Let’s face it. We live in a culture that is obsessed with weight and body image. Cool Sculpting ads bombard us with the promise to target, freeze, and eliminate inconvenient fat cells. To “take you further.” But this and other cosmetic nonsense has nothing to do with a real view of obesity care. The point […]
December 22, 2018 — Among American adults, 29 percent have high blood pressure. Less than half of them have it under control. But more than three quarters of them take blood pressure meds. By contrast, only one quarter of American adults get the exercise that’s recommended for good health. However, a new study in the British Journal of Sports […]
