December 9, 2018 — The plan to “make school lunches great again” is complete. The USDA has announced its final plans to lower the nutrition standards for school cafeterias. That means more sodium, more white bread, and more sugar-sweetened milk will be A-OK with the USDA. Completely Unsurprising Anyone who’s surprised by this needs to get out from under […]
November 8, 2018 — It’s been an ugly election season. Many issues divide our government sharply. But on one point, both Democrats and Republicans seem to agree now. They won’t roll back health insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions. It’s a stroke of good news for people living with obesity. Because it used to be that getting affordable […]
November 7, 2018 — Way back in 2016, some pundits described the U.S. presidential election as a victory of Cracker Barrel over Whole Foods. That was then. This is now. In the match between comfort food and healthy eating, our verdict is that neither one is clearly winning. Not so different from the mid-term election results we just witnessed. Everyone […]
November 6, 2018 — It’s hard to watch. The UK is coming to grips with the notion that the country faces a growing problem with obesity. And so, policymakers are trotting out some unfortunate ideas for dealing with it. But somehow, Health Secretary Matt Hancock managed to pack up the worst of it into a tidy package. He’s urging […]
October 7, 2018 — Just a few years ago, the debate was still going strong. “This is not a disease. People have the capacity to take control of their lives. It’s a disorder of choice.” Sound familiar? In 2010, Harvard’s Gene Heyman made these arguments against dealing with addiction as a disease in a popular book from the Harvard […]
September 20, 2018 — Ready or not, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans are coming our way in 2020. In the midst of our polarized politics, you can be sure that this round will have some difficult twists and turns. No More One Size Fits All The new dietary guidelines will follow a life stage approach. USDA and HHS organized […]
September 2, 2018 — The bigs are out to get us. Really. Big food, big government, big agriculture, big medicine, big marketing, big academia, and more. We could go on, but no need. When all these bigs align, some big, bad, and unfortunate mistakes can fall out. A self-professed angry old man – George Lundberg – outlines a case study in […]
August 16, 2018 — By their very nature, dietary guidelines have a shaky relationship with the reality of what we eat. Before 1977, Americans had no guidelines for what they should eat. But then, a senate select committee published dietary goals for Americans. In 1980, those “goals” became the first edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans Controversial from the […]
July 26, 2018 — “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” Groucho Marx (borrowing words from Ernest Benn) explained perfectly why politics aren’t helpful for dealing with obesity. If you want a case in point, we will send you to a new essay in The American Conservative […]
July 19, 2018 — A jarring story is playing out in public health. Momentum is growing to tax sugary drinks and junk foods all over the world. From a perch of privilege it sounds good. If you tax these bad foods and drinks enough, people will stop buying them. Even better, modeling exercises tell advocates that the benefits will […]
