May 21, 2023 — Let’s get right to the point. This point is that it’s always best to stick with the truth. Sometimes it is inconvenient, but it is definitely the best choice. So we’re disappointed in you, WHO. We love you and hated to see you telling a fib this week when you issued a news bulletin, saying […]
May 14, 2023 — “Fix the food first. Let’s see if these drugs are actually better than real food.” Those words from Robert Lustig (the sugar is poison guy) capture the dissonance obesity medicines are causing for people who believe that obesity is simply the result of bad food. They’re framing care for people with obesity as an obstacle […]
May 6, 2023 — Nope. We are not done with fighting obesity by selling water, fruits, and veggies. Former First Lady Michelle Obama is starting a healthy food and beverage company with the help of private equity. Ordinarily, we’re supposed to think of private equity as the bad guys – helping the rich get richer and driving wider disparities. […]
May 2, 2023 — “Especially for children, diet and lifestyle must remain at the forefront of obesity prevention and treatment.” This conviction, summing up a new editorial in JAMA, beautifully captures the discomfort that the availability of more effective treatments for obesity causes. The belief persists that diets and exercise are the right way to reverse obesity. So the […]
April 22, 2023 — An “impassioned polemic” is headed our way from British media doctor Chris van Tulleken and it aims to have us excise ultra-processed from our dietary habits. No doubt about it, ultra-processed food wins the prize for today’s best food boogeyman, but how wise is this bit of food fear based on correlation without a cause. […]
April 18, 2023 — Consider these two competing headlines. In the Washington Post, Kate Cohen tells us “It’s time to cancel diet culture.” Then with a press release about new papers in Nature Medicine, researchers tell us “Most new Type 2 diabetes cases attributable to suboptimal diet.” It’s a fascinating mashup of causality, attribution, and diet culture. On one […]
April 2, 2023 — We are living in an age of low trust. Trust in scientists declined through the pandemic and around the world, trust in elected officials registers at very low levels. Because of this, we are absolutely not surprised with the frequent finger-pointing and stories about conflicts of interest in nutrition and obesity. These are subjects that […]
April 1, 2023 — Scientific progress is sometimes tedious, but inevitable nonetheless. And thanks to progress in nutrition research, at long last, we have a clear understanding of the root cause of obesity. It is hyper-palatable food – too much food that tastes too good. A new analysis in the Lancer Nutrition provides the confirmation that food policy experts […]
March 26, 2023 — Food is medicine, say folks in certain food policy circles, and we have an abundant supply of it – especially in the U.S. So why is it true in this country that we have more food, find less joy in it, and live shorter lives? Eating More, Enjoying It Less, Losing Years of Life American […]
March 9, 2023 — More and more, dietary health guidance points us to consider whole foods and how they fit into the overall pattern of our eating. Advice that divides individual foods or nutrients between good and bad labels is not so helpful because context matters. And yet, advice to avoid saturated fat remains ubiquitous. Perhaps such a broad […]
