October 2, 2018 — France has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world. But it’s growing and the French parliament knows why. Le Big Mac. Burgers outsold baguettes for the first time ever in 2017. Burgers are on the menus in 85 percent of French restaurants. They sold 1.5 billion of them last year. So naturally, when the parliament […]
September 18, 2018 — Knowledge is power, right? So why doesn’t nutrition education – by itself – resolve our problems with obesity? Maybe we just haven’t tried hard enough. Or maybe knowledge is helpful. But it’s insufficient for overcoming obesity. Just like any other disease. A test of health promotion for Turkish children with obesity provides an good case study. […]
September 8, 2018 — Using a small spoon might be a useful tool for preventing weight gain and obesity. That’s the claim you’ll find at the end of a new study in the British Journal of Nutrition. Like many other little nudges, smaller spoons seem to have have an impact on eating behaviors. But like the metaphor of a […]
August 31, 2018 — Seeing is believing. So showing before and after results is a tried and true way to persuade people that something works. The effect must be real. You can see for yourself. Unfortunately, for weight management it’s the basis for bogus claims of effectiveness. In a letter to the editor, Bridget Hannon and colleagues point out […]
August 23, 2018 — We find an odd bit of logic woven into a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics this month. Overweight and obesity is becoming common in teens, so it’s tough for them to think of it as abnormal. So fewer teens are worrying about losing weight. And thus, those adolescents are missing out on opportunities for obesity […]
August 20, 2018 — Ask a thoughtful scientist precisely what has brought us a global pandemic of obesity and you are likely to get an ambiguous answer. We have plenty of suspects. But no sinuglar culprit. So the honest answer is IDK. Faking It vs “I Don’t Know” Most often, neither journalists nor policymakers let the facts get in […]
August 10, 2018 — Five months ago, we wrote about inflated claims of effectiveness from a pilot study of obesity prevention by Scherr et al. An independent group of researchers had written to the journal with concerns about the flawed analysis of the study. The flaws effectively canceled out the claims of effectiveness for the program. But Scherr et […]
August 9, 2018 — Journals are bursting with studies of childhood obesity this week. One appeared in Pediatrics. JAMA published two of them. Furthermore, all of these studies were randomized and controlled. On top of all that, JAMA published an editorial, describing “a glimmer of hope” for preventing childhood obesity. A Glimmer or a Wish? Unfortunately, we’re not seeing a lot […]
August 8, 2018 — At the National Academy of Sciences yesterday, the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions got a bit of a jolt. It came in the form of an afternoon spent reflecting on the counterintuitive physiology of obesity. One roundtable member summed it up nicely. “This way of thinking about obesity just smashes our old models for solving the […]
July 24, 2018 — Today we have another round of headlines, clucking about childhood obesity. Unfortunately, the UK is setting new records for severe childhood obesity. It’s such a shame, they say. Obesity is entirely preventable, said Max Davie to reporters. Davie is the officer for health promotion in the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. A Ten-Fold Increase […]
