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 […]
May 22, 2024 — In a certain way, Ozempic and TikTok were made for each other. One is the most viral social media of the moment. The other is an omnipresent sensation in medical therapy. Both of them fill a vacuum in popular culture. For TikTok, the vacuum might be boredom – though we admit that this assessment comes […]
May 19, 2024 — Food policy advocates are sharing a music video that captures a certain way of thinking. The choruses are nothing but trash talk about obesity and food. “It’s your own damn fault,” says one verse. In the next, “a team of evil scientists through rigorous testing created the most abominable snacks.” So it draws us into […]
May 15, 2024 — The symposium that packed an auditorium at ECO2024 yesterday dealt with the fundamental need to get beyond BMI for defining clinical obesity. It seems so simple. “Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health,” says the World Health Organization. And yet that definition ties back to BMI for […]
April 22, 2024 — Virginia Sole-Smith has black and white answers for the world of gray nuances that define the relationship of nutrition, obesity, and health. She is an outspoken advocate for fat acceptance and body liberation. Restraint is something she rejects. In a very personal profile for the New York Times, Lisa Miller describes her as both inspirational […]
February 25, 2024 — Are we cynical? We can surely find excuses to be. Examples of cynicism pop up at every glance. Certainly we see it in politics and public policy. Closer to home at ConscienHealth, people routinely find reasons for cynicism about all kinds of medical research and advice – especially nutrition and obesity. This is a real […]
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 […]
November 14, 2023 — Please. We don’t need fake controversies and false comparative claims. But in reporting on an excellent new study of the effects of cutting salt on blood pressure, we’re getting a little bit of both. The study that is generating this frenzy simply doesn’t line up with the headlines that reporters are spinning out of it. […]
September 7, 2023 — The Wegovy brand of semaglutide has finally come to the UK this week – albeit in limited quantities. So in the Guardian, Zoe Williams wonders if this will mean the end to blathering about obesity: “Despite this being a breakthrough, it is going to pose an immense challenge to those, in medicine and beyond, who […]
April 16, 2023 — The availability of advanced medicines for obesity presents a dilemma. On one hand, people are accustomed to both patronizing and disparaging a diverse industry devoted to helping people lose weight. It ranges from the obvious frauds of dietary supplements that promise to help people lose weight quickly and permanently to behavioral support programs like Weight […]
