July 16, 2023 — A new essay in the AMA Journal of Ethics raises a surprising question. Should obesity be an unmentionable health condition? Does its diagnosis do more harm than good? Kristen Hardy writes instead about healthcare for fat people. She does not like the diagnosis of obesity because, she writes, “‘excess weight’ is a myth. Fat people […]
April 5, 2023 — BMI is one of those topics in the obesity realm where many people agree in many ways. Yet it can inspire some passionate arguments. A prime example of these disagreements came right to the top of the workshop on BMI at the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions at the National Academies yesterday. In quick succession, we […]
March 5, 2023 — Defining obesity is a tricky enterprise for the simple reason that we are all easily fooled by appearances. But obesity is not a disease of size or appearance. It’s a disease of dysregulated adipose tissue. This fact doesn’t stop people from thinking – falsely – that they can size up a person’s metabolic health based […]
May 18, 2022 — One of the important complications of obesity is NAFLD – non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Quite simply, this is a condition where unhealthy fat accumulates in the liver. It leads to inflammation and fibrosis, progressing to cirrhosis, liver cancer, or liver failure in severe cases. Often, it goes undetected until these more severe problems emerge. Because […]
October 8, 2020 — We’re learning the hard way that neglecting a health problem doesn’t lead it to “go away.” In fact, it can come back to bite you. But on the other hand, paying attention to a problem can pay big benefits. And so it is with diagnosing obesity and giving it real medical attention. A new study […]
February 26, 2020 — We hear lots of arguments about diagnosing obesity. Some people say it’s all about BMI. Sometimes they use this as a straw man argument for saying that BMI has flaws, so obesity isn’t really a thing. But other people are putting forward thoughtful proposals for diagnosing and staging the chronic disease of obesity. One such […]
January 10, 2020 — One of the few things in obesity that people agree upon is that BMI has serious limitations for the diagnosis of obesity. It’s great for epidemiologists. But it causes problems for clinicians and patients. While it’s useful as a crude measure of weight status, it doesn’t provide much insight into a patient’s clinical status. So […]
December 27, 2017 — Some people still object to the idea that obesity is a chronic disease. They express concerns that body size is a poor marker for health. But that argument confuses obesity with body size. For insight, consider the case of obesity in elephants. These are all large animals. Some have obesity and some do not. A […]
June 9, 2017 — A new study in PLOS ONE looks at five ways to measure body proportions – including BMI – and proclaims a winner. It’s not BMI. The winner is waist to height ratio. WHtR beats BMI and other measures in this study because it’s a better stand-in for actually measuring excess visceral fat. Unleash the headlines. BMI […]
March 3, 2017 — How can it be that obesity is a hidden disease? In a 2009 study of patient records, Jun Ma and colleagues found that healthcare providers seldom diagnose obesity. Of patients with a BMI in the range of obesity, 70% do not receive a diagnosis. Misperceptions in Rural Patients In self reports, people consistently say that […]
