October 17, 2025 — When it comes to obesity, it seems everyone is looking for clickbait. Facts are incidental. So this week, we have wildly differing news headlines about U.S. obesity prevalence. The Harvard Gazette tells us we have an “astounding surge” in obesity prevalence. Axios tells us there’s “good news” on obesity prevalence. Where does the truth lie? […]
September 3, 2025 — The magical Mirror of Erised can drive people mad by showing them their deepest desires. Judging by the flood of papers in recent days, it seems that one such desire is to find consensus for a clinical definition of obesity. In the past week alone, three such publications have crossed our screens. In the past […]
July 20, 2025 — Six months have passed since the Lancet Commission on the definition of clinical obesity aimed to “settle the ongoing dispute around the idea of obesity as a disease.” At the time, we had doubts about this new definition “settling” disputes about defining obesity. Indeed, we have seen lots of vigorous discussion, but not a lot […]
March 18, 2025 — We’ve been living with the consensus report of the Lancet Commission on Clinical Obesity now for two months. Enough time has passed for feelings about the strengths and limitations of this work to take shape. A new commentary in the BMJ yesterday brings a sharp focus to the struggle of defining and dealing with current […]
January 17, 2025 — Obesity is linked to many common diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease and knee osteoarthritis. Obesity is currently defined using a person’s body mass index, or BMI. This is calculated as weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of height (in metres). In people of European descent, the BMI for […]
May 15, 2024 — The symposium that packed an auditorium at ECO2024 yesterday dealt with the fundamental need to get beyond BMI for defining clinical obesity. It seems so simple. “Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health,” says the World Health Organization. And yet that definition ties back to BMI for […]
April 9, 2024 — More than a decade has passed since the American Medical Association confirmed that obesity is a complex, chronic disease. But the rest of the world is still struggling with this idea. Much as we have all started to say obesity is a disease, we more often act like it’s merely a risk factor for other […]
