Posts Tagged ‘obesity care’

Surprise! Most Prescriptions for Obesity Meds Are Never Filled

August 22, 2023 — A new study of real world primary non-adherence (PNA, not filling an Rx) for obesity medicines provides documentation for something that should surprise no one. More than 90% prescriptions for obesity meds are never filled. Writing in the Journal of Managed Care + Specialty Pharmacy, Hong Kan and colleagues say this is unusual, especially for […]

The Gaps in Wealth and Poverty, Obesity and Health

August 21, 2023 — If you are paying attention to the disparities in wealth, poverty, health, and obesity, you might note that there’s good news and bad news to be found right now. On the good news side of things, the global inequality of wealth shrank in 2022. That happened for two reasons. People in some of the poorest […]

The Twisted Path to Better Obesity Medicines

August 18, 2023 — We are clearly on a path toward better obesity medicines, but reflecting on decades of work on this, clearly, the path is twisted. Describing this path, Gina Kolata writes: “Every so often a drug comes along that has the potential to change the world. Medical specialists say the latest to offer that possibility are the […]

Paperwork, Insurance Tricks, and Tools for Health Disparity

July 22, 2023 — The administrative burden of healthcare is something that everyone experiences, but it hits people with social and economic disadvantages especially hard. Thus, paperwork and insurance tricks become tools for promoting health disparity that often escape notice. The Administrative Burden of American Healthcare A recent research brief from Health Affairs tells us that as much as […]

The Blinding Distraction of BMI and Weight Loss in Obesity

July 20, 2023 — Obesity care is suffering from a blinding distraction – BMI and weight loss. It’s not hard to find critiques of this. The American Medical Association recently cautioned physicians against the misuse of BMI as a surrogate for health and obesity. PLOS One has a new paper telling us BMI may not necessarily increase mortality independently […]

Compelled to Assign Moral Responsibility for Obesity

July 6, 2023 — “Whose fault is obesity? Most of the blame rests with one culprit.”  In the Washington Post, Tamar Haspel perfectly captures the overwhelming compulsion to assign moral responsibility for obesity. She espouses a popular view: “The lion’s share – I’ll go with 61 percent (and, yes, of course I’m totally making this up to give some […]

Obesity Future in the Eyes of Lived Experience

June 4, 2023 — The future of obesity will look nothing like its past. In fact, right now the contours of this problem are nothing like they were just a few years ago. We are in the midst of great changes, with more to come. So it’s quite a privilege to spend three days peering into the future of […]

Greed versus Health and Obesity Care

May 28, 2023 — “Money makes the world go around.” Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli explained this in Cabaret. But sorting it out in healthcare – and specifically in obesity care right now – is quite a challenge. A lot of money is in play and so the tension between greed, health, and obesity care is painfully obvious. The […]

Success in Reducing Self-Stigma

May 22, 2023 — Despite a great deal of progress in recognizing weight bias and stigma, many challenges remain in overcoming it. Explicit expressions of weight bias no longer get a free pass. So they are becoming less common. But implicit weight bias is as strong as ever. Perhaps even more challenging is the weight bias that people direct […]

ECO2023: Seeking the Determinants of Obesity

May 19, 2023 — One question that holds us captive in obesity is the question of its origins. Why has its prevalence been rising so relentlessly now for decades? At ECO2023, this question inserted itself into one of the major themes of the meeting – a pursuit of the determinants of obesity. Commercial Determinants Emma Boyland and Aileen McGloin […]