April 11, 2021 — By and large, people can deal with anything they can talk about. But if they can’t talk about it, they can’t deal with it. Talking through a problem is the first step to solving it. Until now, though, racism in healthcare has been a problem that no one wants to talk about. Writing in the […]
April 6, 2021 — From the very early days COVID-19, we saw clues that two pandemics might be interacting – COVID-19 and obesity. But we are not fans of catastrophizing health problems. So the question becomes, how can we come to terms with these synergistic pandemics? Can we do it in a way that brings us closer to solutions? […]
March 21, 2021 — “You can’t lift people up by putting them down.” As part of a series on the future of advocacy, this is how Trabian Shorters explains the importance of asset framing – building upon a community’s assets. But too often, we start with the deficits. Shorters points this out in the context of racial justice. It […]
December 24, 2020 — Watching the pandemic of COVID-19 play out this year has given us an education in so many things. Will it prompt us to wrap our heads around a persistent pandemic of racism? Or shall we fall back on tired rhetoric? Racism has profound effects on health and lifespan for people of color. The facts are […]
August 19, 2020 — There’s no way to gloss over this mess. Nor should we. The Journal of Internal Medicine made a terrible mess when they published a paper on the role of physiology in African American women with obesity. That mess exposes the how blind people can be to racism. We are perhaps even more blind to the […]
August 3, 2020 — Your writing seems to have a good deal of political and social influence rather than solid scientific thinking. Such an editorial comment is not unusual when one writes on health and racism. But it makes us wonder. Can health scientists wrap their heads around a pandemic of racism? Or shall we debate the semantics to […]
July 29, 2020 — Presumably, when people choose a career in healthcare, at least one of the motivations is to care for other people. So we might expect that along with caring comes respect in healthcare. But that is not a guarantee, apparently. For some providers, respecting diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, and size seems to be a challenge. […]
July 22, 2020 — Oh my, we do love to hate BMI. Monday on Huffpost, Christine Byrne dispensed the latest argument against this villainous measure. BMI is racist. What’s more, she tells us it’s sexist, too. Definitely, this sounds bad, this composite index of height and weight. Is this a case of an innocent little number worming its way […]
July 19, 2020 — People adapt. This is a powerful fact of human psychology that hands us the problem of shifting baselines. When circumstances change, people come to accept a new normal. Even jarring changes, such as the blitz on London during World War II, might shock people at first. Yet after a time, people come to accept a […]
July 17, 2020 — This week from the New England Journal of Medicine, a perspective on COVID-19, disparities, nutrition, and obesity popped up. Great! But then we read it. Social determinants of health . . . a healthy diet . . . food deserts . . . minority groups face hurdles. The authors piled on familiar phrases. In sum, […]
