December 21, 2016 — If you want some understanding of why sensible food policy is so hard, study the results of new opinion research by the Pew Research Center. Researchers Cary Funk and Brian Kennedy find that beliefs about healthy food, more than education and facts, shape the way that people think about questions: These choices reflect personalized “ideologies” […]
November 2, 2016 — New research to be presented at ObesityWeek 2016 indicates that weight shaming may be easing a bit. At the same time, the public increasingly understands that obesity is a medical condition. Between 2013 and 2016, public perception of obesity as a “personal problem of bad choices” has dropped from 44% to 34%. On top of that, […]
February 8, 2016 — Novelist Sarai Walker proclaimed in the New York Times this weekend: “Yes, I’m fat. It’s OK. I said it.” Her commentary immediately started trending and it made us wonder, is “fat” losing its sting as an offensive insult? Fat acceptance activists, after all, have accomplished much. As we’ve written before, many signs can be found […]
December 4, 2015 — Remember Ebola? That was so 2014. But with that problem solved, Americans are turning their attention back to obesity, which is again at the top of the list of the most urgent health concerns for adults in the U.S. This insight comes to us courtesy of the Gallup Organization, which has been polling the public about their […]
May 18, 2015 — In a somewhat surprising outcome, Rebecca Puhl and Sai Liu have found substantial evidence of public support for the 2013 AMA decision to classify obesity as a complex, chronic disease. The majority of a robust national sample of 1,118 of U.S. adults agreed with 11 of 17 reasons favoring classification of obesity as a disease and agreed with […]
January 10, 2015 — Obesity sits atop the list of diseases that Americans worry about. (We’ll set aside the matter of Ebola for now.) And yet people have a hard time wrapping their heads around obesity as a disease. Some equate obesity with BMI or body size and protest that BMI can’t be a disease. Others say obesity is […]
August 4, 2013 — Obesity, weight, and diet are the top personal health concerns of Americans according to a national survey of 1,219 adults conducted by Hart Research Associates in June and released Friday by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association. The study also identified obesity as one of the top three health research priorities for Americans. Overall as […]
February 15, 2013 — American public opinion is clear that obesity is a health problem that needs to be addressed, but opinions on obesity solutions are mixed. In a recent poll of 1,000 adults fielded by Associated Press/NORC for Public Affairs Research, 75% of people say having excess weight and obesity is an extremely or very serious problem. Excess […]
February 9, 2013 — According to a recent survey of 3,800 adults done by NPD Market Research, 23% of women reported being on a diet in 2012, a decline of 13% versus those who said they were dieting in 1992. Some theorize the change in attitudes about dieting reflects the fact that more people are changing their lifestyles permanently, […]
