January 29, 2023 — Reading about the heated and not terribly well-reasoned arguments people are having about obesity prompts a sad conclusion. A history of ineffective and, at times, harmful anti-obesity campaigns may have poisoned the well of public sentiment about obesity. People have such strong feelings that facts and reason become irrelevant. Aggrieved Advocates for People with Eating […]
September 25, 2022 — An impressive amount of thought and effort goes into messaging about health. Honorable people work diligently to move the population toward healthier lives. They craft messages for leading people to stop smoking, get their vaccinations, eat healthy, stay active and fit. The creativity and strategic skill are impressive. But one dimension of effective and sustainable […]
August 6, 2022 — Can we find an intervention to reduce the prevalence of obesity across the population? Marion Nestle tells us one-size-fits-all obesity prevention doesn’t have much promise in her view: “My interpretation of the current status of obesity prevention research is that any single policy intervention is unlikely to show anything but small improvements. Pessimists will say […]
December 4, 2021 — Recent analyses of health policy on obesity present a rather stark picture. Policies aimed at obesity have done more to promote stigma than health. The focus on individuals has not changed for decades, say James Nobles and his colleagues. In fact, they found that 58 percent of research aimed to prove that educating individuals to […]
October 10, 2021 — The numbers make it crystal clear. One of the long-term effects of the COVID pandemic will be a jump in child obesity. And it’s not hard to trace that back to the mental health of children and families. Late last week a new report in Pediatrics provided a stark reminder about the impact of COVID […]
October 8, 2021 — With great gifts come great responsibilities. It doesn’t really matter whether you get this message from biblical sources or Spiderman. The imperative is there. If you have a big platform, you better use it to serve a purpose bigger than yourself. It looks like Queen Latifah and Novo Nordisk might be using their platforms to […]
September 26, 2021 — Some learning comes only the hard way. In this pandemic, we see some countries cope well while others struggle. In the process, we can learn a great deal on many fronts. But the case study of Denmark is offering an especially vivid lesson in the value of avoiding blame and shame while building of trust […]
August 22, 2021 — Make no mistake about it, public health is a righteous cause. Overwhelmingly, people choose careers in public health because they believe in the mission and they want to make a difference in the world. But righteous causes can bring a loss of objectivity. It happens because strong, human feelings come into play. When we hear […]
May 14, 2021 — With the conclusion of #ECO2021 and #COS7, it’s worth reflecting on where the efforts to address obesity will take us. In the 1990s, the concept of a “war on obesity” gained traction. But it was problematic. Not only did it promote weight stigma, it was also ineffective. Medical care for obesity has been mostly inaccessible. […]
May 13, 2021 — Food systems are a key ingredient in the problem we face with obesity. But working toward healthier food systems is a challenge that goes well beyond the cartoonish ideas that surface in some public health campaigns. For example, marketing practices can be a vexing problem. Food security is a dimension of the problem that came […]
