June 21, 2020 — We’ve seen quite a range of responses to the observation that obesity leads to worse outcomes with COVID-19. But most of them are unhelpful. First, of course, was denial. Now we have the anger phase. Over in the U.K., folks are murmuring that we should blame the food industry. Writing in the BMJ, Monique Tan, […]
June 8, 2020 — The headlines are pretty direct about it. “COVID-19 lockdowns make childhood obesity worse,” says a headline from the University of Buffalo. Another report tells us that school closures will drive childhood obesity rates up by 2.4 percentage points. All this sounds very precise and matter of fact. But what it really amounts to is speculation. […]
June 5, 2020 — These are times that present us with extreme but false choices. Lives versus livelihoods. Chaos versus oppression. Add to that list an extreme, false dichotomy on obesity. At one extreme, we have two fat acceptance advocates advocates arguing that concern about obesity is nothing more than an expression of racism. At the other, a conservative […]
March 28, 2020 — Being certain sometimes means being certainly wrong. For decades now, we’ve assumed that childhood obesity is a problem that stems unhealthy eating. “One of the best strategies to reduce childhood obesity is to improve the eating and exercise habits of your entire family,” says the Mayo Clinic. But a new study in JAMA tells us […]
March 2, 2020 — Today for Obesity Care Week, the focus is weight bias, which lies at the core of our problems with making progress against obesity. It’s the core problem because it frustrates us in two ways. First of all, intellectual bias about obesity itself leads some very smart people to think (and say) some very dumb things […]
February 27, 2020 — We are swimming in a sea of implicit weight bias. At its most basic, the bias is this: obesity is a behavioral problem. When we tell people, no, it’s a problem of physiology, most often they can’t accept it. Tell them it’s highly heritable and they often spit back at us. “Genes are not destiny!” […]
February 19, 2020 — A new study this week in Pediatrics for the first time shows that children with late bedtimes have a higher risk of obesity. That association is even stronger if a child has parents with obesity. It’s not totally clear what this tells us – if anything – about cause and effect. But it’s reasonably clear […]
February 17, 2020 — Why do we have so much obesity? One possible answer is evolution. By this, we don’t mean human evolution. Rather, we mean commercial evolution – of an obesogenic food supply. Many have suggested that the problem lies with addictive foods. Michael Moss tells a slick story about the evil food industry engineering hyperpalatable food that […]
February 16, 2020 — It’s a disquieting thought. Pollution in our fat is a real, measurable thing. But that’s precisely why it deserves a closer look. Vicente Mustieles and Juan Arrebola explain in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Fat tissue is an important endocrine organ. And it’s also the place in our bodies where endocrine disrupting chemicals […]
February 8, 2020 — Today we have the privilege of presenting at the Methodist Health System Digestive Institute Symposium in Dallas. Mixed in with some truly distinguished experts on gastroenterology, we’ll be exploring evolving policies on obesity. But most important, we’ll be examining why progress in reducing obesity has been so elusive. And above all, how can we make […]
