July 28, 2024 — It simply feels good to find people who think like we do. We can give voice to strong feelings, we can find validation, and we can join in an amen chorus of affirmation. But unfortunately, we can also get stuck in a dead end – committed to ideas that don’t find acceptance in the real […]
May 31, 2024 — It’s difficult to make predictions – especially about the future. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to see that the new 2025 edition of dietary guidelines will disappoint ultra-processed hardliners. The rhetoric from that sector sounds increasingly like something from a highly polarized presidential campaign. We pity the nutrition scientists and clinicians who have the hard job […]
March 30, 2024 — Remember when grains were good? Judging by the nutrition red alert arising from the possibility that potatoes might be classified as a grain instead of a vegetable, maybe grains are on the naughty list now. Brave potato defenders in the U.S. Senate are rising up to keep this from happening. They want to save us […]
February 11, 2024 — Religious tolerance seems hard to find lately. Ample illustrations of intolerance flow from the Middle East, India, and American politics – from all over the world, really. But in an age of less affiliation with organized religions, we also see people seek out other belief systems to latch their passions onto. Health and fitness are […]
January 28, 2024 — In public life and unfortunately, in science and health policy, we find too often that contempt takes over from curiosity and reason. It is obvious in politics and likely to get painful this year. But it is not confined to the political realm. In nutrition and obesity research, we find that people are often ready […]
January 11, 2024 — Clicks rule the internet and much of social media, so rudeness is rather easy to find, but hard to take. Reporting that brings insight and understanding is more rare and more rewarding. On obesity yesterday, we found a sharp contrast between promoting insight and promoting contempt. From the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public […]
November 19, 2023 — “I am.” These two words define so many struggles we face in public discourse today. People define their own identities in diverse ways and fiercely defend them. Disparage a person’s identity and you are attacking them. What follows is not gentle, rational, or easily calmed. Right now, we see how potent it is in public […]
April 18, 2023 — Consider these two competing headlines. In the Washington Post, Kate Cohen tells us “It’s time to cancel diet culture.” Then with a press release about new papers in Nature Medicine, researchers tell us “Most new Type 2 diabetes cases attributable to suboptimal diet.” It’s a fascinating mashup of causality, attribution, and diet culture. On one […]
April 9, 2023 — Hello darkness, my old friend. Welcome to the sound of silence. Social networks, conceived to connect and inform us, have evolved in a way to polarize and misinform us. Loud voices dominate public narratives on a wide range of subjects and leave us little room for the development of well-informed and nuanced views. Certainly we […]
March 16, 2023 — We are living in an age of amplified contention. Anger can be like a muscle that gets stronger when we exercise it. If you doubt that, take a long look at what social media amplifies. So seeing passionate contention at the intersection of obesity and eating disorders might be unsurprising. But it’s not especially helpful […]
