Posts Tagged ‘obesity prevention’

New data published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine document a troubling reality. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes in American youth has risen dramatically over the past decade. Using a large, national dataset of more than 18 million young people, investigators found that cases rose from 0.73 to 1.24 per 1,000 […]

A new paper in Current Obesity Reports asks a deceptively simple question: Are we ready to rethink the fundamental bias about obesity embedded in prevention strategies? It’s a timely challenge. After decades of effort, obesity prevalence continues to rise globally, despite enormous investments in prevention strategies. Assumptions The new publication argues that this disconnect is […]

Shifting paradigms is difficult, but that does not mean we can’t try. Recently, I have been continuing the discussion that I started to think about in 2012 when I started my PhD. It is all about drawing a bright line between health promotion and obesity prevention. We need to be sure to be clear about […]

Professor Naveed Sattar has a modest proposal for us. He chairs the UK government’s obesity healthcare goals and says smaller portions might hold the key to reducing obesity in women, children, and shorter persons. Sattar writes in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology: “When only one portion size is offered, women, children and individuals of shorter stature […]

As the world is coming around to the understanding that public health policy cannot neglect the need for obesity treatment, a question hangs in the air. What does this mean for obesity prevention strategies? This question – together with fast-changing market realities – begs another question. Will prevention policy or market dynamics reduce obesity more? […]

The Washington Examiner tells us we can prevent millions of cases of obesity and thousands of strokes simply by dropping twice-a-year time changes. “Study says.” Discover magazine says so, too. The Washington Post is a little more restrained. “We’d all be a little less prone to obesity and strokes if we ditched the switch.” Ditch […]

A new study in Lancet suggests that we are overdue for fresh thinking about early childhood obesity prevention. This is because programs built upon a premise of engaging parents in the effort turn out to be ineffective. The conclusions of this research are stark: “This study is the most comprehensive individual participant data meta-analysis in […]

We have a great privilege this week to spend time in Canberra (and Sydney), delivering two invited presentations and finally meeting up with quite a number of people we have known only virtually. Now in person. The occasion is the annual meeting of ANZMOSS – the Australian and New Zealand Metabolic and Obesity Surgery Society. […]

Nudging the behavior of consumers seems like an appealing strategy for overcoming the rise in obesity and the harm it is causing to population health. Apply a little behavioral psychology and voilà! People make healthier choices. The appeal is so strong that the UK government is counting on supermarket nudges to overcome obesity and save […]

In BMJ Public Health, Annabel Davies and colleagues have published a new analysis of interventions to prevent obesity in children. They started with data from two Cochrane systematic reviews published in 2024 (here and here) and applied a Bayesian multi-level meta-regression analysis. What they found were obesity prevention effects that range from being small and […]