August 2, 2021 — We see a lot of stubborn opinions about nutrition and obesity research. People dig intellectual trenches and defend their positions about sugar, salt, and fat. Suppositions turn into convictions. Data becomes a tool for proving a point. Or inconvenient data leads a professor say we have to stomp it out. It’s depressing, really, if we […]
July 17, 2021 — Back in 2005, new obesity research from CDC produced an unexpected finding. JAMA, a first-rate journal, carefully peer-reviewed and published it. But Harvard’s Walter Willett didn’t like what the data showed. So he mounted an offensive to discredit the researcher and her work. We would call this academic bullying. He called it necessary because his […]
June 4, 2021 — A new paper in Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism shows an association between obesity and the risk for long COVID. People with moderate or severe obesity have a 28 to 30 percent higher risk of hospital stays after the acute phase of COVID in this study. But it’s not the first study noting this link. In […]
April 24, 2021 — “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” said Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. We can point to ways this is true. But if you dig into health disparities, this claim might be harder to support. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) […]
April 2, 2021 — A good friend once told us, “Obesity is not a disease. You can’t catch it.” We won’t deny that his comment reflects the feelings of many people. But on the facts, he was simply wrong. A new systematic review in the International Journal of Obesity tells us that, indeed, it is possible to catch obesity. […]
February 21, 2021 — There’s a new mantra making the rounds, but it’s really not so new. Let’s follow what the science says. That’s well and good, except that the science is seldom as definitive as we would like. In fact, when you dig into the details of any given study, you may find surprises – or more questions […]
January 1, 2021 — In a world of divisions, one sentiment seems to unite us: joy in being done with 2020. Thus we say that we look to this new year with a measure of hope for better days ahead. Even for a stern realist, hope is important. Monica Hesse explains: I am not a superstitious person and I […]
October 10, 2020 — We’re having trust issues. The world is facing a pandemic, but the solutions are not obvious. Headlines are full of reasons to mistrust governments that should be leading us through this crisis. Science offers a promising beacon for some. But others are dismissive. Make no mistake about it, all over the world, people are having […]
September 13, 2020 — In nutrition, we encounter a fair amount of dietary dogma. But dogma is not confined to nutrition. Obesity prevention, obesity treatment, and health promotion are all teeming with it. Asking questions and paying attention to inconvenient facts can be most unwelcome. However, if the goal is better health, it’s essential. Both public and individual health […]
August 31, 2020 — It’s a wildly popular catchphrase in this age of COVID-19. Follow the science. The video on the right is packed with cautionary tales by Rohin Francis. In short, he explains that when policy makers say they’re following the science, it’s often a fiction. Mangling the science might be a more apt description. Mangling the Science […]
