Posts Tagged ‘scientific discourse’
January 28, 2025 — It is fascinating to watch the public discourse about newly proposed criteria from the Lancet Commission for a clinical diagnosis of obesity unfold. The headline is easy. “It’s time to move beyond BMI alone.” The response to that idea has been clear and unmistakable: “What took so long?” But then comes the hard part that […]
January 23, 2025 — It was easy to see this coming. Our top prediction for the new year was that the Lancet Commission on Clinical Obesity would be big news and the spark for a big debate. The news splash was unmistakable. From 92 countries all over the world, more than 3,000 persons lined up for the launch event. […]
July 24, 2024 — It’s nice, really. People are paying attention to obesity, its definition, and the bias they bring to the subject. If you need evidence of this, look no further than a series of three new editorials in the Annals of Internal Medicine. They’re wrestling with BMI and the definition of obesity. The authors present a range […]
May 9, 2024 — We’re packing our bags for Venice, where the European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2024) will start in just a few days. A lot will be coming at us in a short space of time, so taking time to set some priorities is essential. Thus, we have a short list of things that we’ll be seeking […]
January 28, 2024 — In public life and unfortunately, in science and health policy, we find too often that contempt takes over from curiosity and reason. It is obvious in politics and likely to get painful this year. But it is not confined to the political realm. In nutrition and obesity research, we find that people are often ready […]
October 26, 2023 — It’s like some kind of holy grail. Obesity prevalence keeps rising and everyone (including ourselves) wants to know why. So headlines saying “major study claims to identify the root cause of obesity” really do grab our attention. News reports are pelting us with headlines saying fructose drives obesity. The only trouble is, the headlines are […]
May 29, 2023 — Expert opinion holds that ultra-processed food is not a good thing. So it’s quite natural to expect that helping people resist the convenience and taste of this ubiquitous type of food will help with dietary health outcomes. So natural that it’s quite easy to dismiss inconvenient, unexpected findings. A little ultra-processing of study results in […]
February 6, 2023 — Authors of a new study in Preventive Medicine Reports tell us that their program “shows promise for obesity prevention among children in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.” But there’s a catch. The study failed to show a significant effect on the study’s primary outcome measure for obesity prevention – BMI z-score. Undaunted, Milagros Rosal and colleagues call […]
September 10, 2022 — Is it possible to have objective dialogue about red meat and health? Is it easy to find? The simple answer is yes and no. In Lancet this year, a pair of letters tell the story of why it’s so hard. These letters concern weaknesses in a massive analysis of the global burden of disease from 2020 […]
July 5, 2022 — It would be hard to find a sharper contrast of scientific views. On one hand, weight gain during pregnancy “is not modifiable via diet and lifestyle change,” write Jodie Dodd and colleagues. But then again, Helena Teede and colleagues found “level 1 evidence” that diet and physical activity interventions help with less excessive weight gain […]