August 8, 2024 — New survey research from YouGov serves up a timely reminder of the problem with weight bias in healthcare. The research, fielded in late June, found that most American adults (53%) have an unfavorable view of the U.S. healthcare system. About one in three persons report negative treatment because of their identity. And weight is the […]
July 19, 2024 — “If we were just to get a fraction [of potential members] to engage in the way that we do things differently with GLP-1s – it’s an insane opportunity for the company.” These words come from the Life Time chain of fitness clubs about the “Miora” wellness clinics they are now putting inside their facilities. It […]
May 23, 2024 — “This is a dream come true.” In her opening presentation yesterday to a diverse group of experts in cardiology, endocrinology, and healthcare, the renowned Donna Ryan was marveling at the broad interest surfacing in serious obesity care – reaching far beyond the limited bubble where it stayed for decades. The American College of Cardiology assembled […]
February 3, 2024 — We confess to a significant amount of fatigue with a social agenda related to size and weight getting overlaid on the medical concern of obesity. The bickering of people who want to make believe that obesity is a purely social issue can be too much to bear. This has been one of those weeks. Moral […]
January 25, 2023 — When a medical condition starts to define how we see ourselves, the conversation about it gets messy. Is this a health concern? Or is it about appearance and vanity? Is concern about obesity something for the few and the wealthy? Or something that profoundly affects the health of a large segment of the population across […]
September 26, 2019 — A new systematic review in the International Journal of Obesity offers a global view on the state of obesity medicine education. It’s definitely a good news, bad news story. The good is that we have plenty of reason to believe that obesity medicine education helps. But the bad news is that the current extent of […]
September 24, 2019 — A professor of pediatrics was visiting patients with her medical students. They saw a patient, a teen with class III obesity that had begun at a very early age. One of her students asked, don’t her parents know their daughter needs to eat healthy and stay active? Another said, it’s terrible what the food industry […]
June 23, 2019 — Obesity presents many problems. But two of them rise to the top: access to care and bias. Yesterday, at the Harvard Blackburn obesity course, Caroline Apovian reminded us why. Too often, people with obesity endure a lifetime of derision and medical neglect. With facts and case histories, she painted a searing picture of the suffering […]
March 19, 2019 — Here’s a jolt of reality from research at the NYU School of Medicine. Among the students who are ready to go into the clinic for their clerkships, most of them believe that controllable factors are very important causes of obesity. But most of them think that biological and genetic factors are not very important. This […]
November 21, 2018 — Extra pounds sneak up on you. A few cookies here, a second helping of gravy there, and the next thing you know the waistband of your favorite pair of pants has grown inexplicably sharp. I found myself in this position a couple of years back, and turned to the system I’ve always used when my […]
