Posts Tagged ‘social media’

For better or worse – and maybe a bit of both – body positivity is in the midst of change. People are ascribing it to the availability and uptake of GLP-1s for treating obesity. In a video essay for the New York Times, Gabriella Lascano explains the journey she has taken to become a former […]

News surfaced this week that NCI is redirecting resources from serious cancer research into a highly speculative study aimed at showing ivermectin can “kill cancer cells.” Let’s face it. In matters of health, including public health, there is demand in certain corners of the public right now for baloney. Fact-based dialogue about evidence or risks […]

Are we cynical? For many of us, the answer is clearly yes. News feeds give us ample reasons for general distrust of the motives of others, for thinking that self-interest is driving the actions of policymakers. Misinformation, conflicts of interest, and an apparent disregard for facts are impossible to ignore. Skepticism is certainly warranted, but […]

Skimming the headlines, it would be easy to think that the combination of mobile phones and social media are responsible for quite a range of our current ills – including mental health and obesity. If you want to dig deeper, you can find a whole tome on the subject from Jonathan Haidt. He has woven […]

In a certain way, Ozempic and TikTok were made for each other. One is the most viral social media of the moment. The other is an omnipresent sensation in medical therapy. Both of them fill a vacuum in popular culture. For TikTok, the vacuum might be boredom – though we admit that this assessment comes […]

Influencers are not doctors. They can’t understand the science issues with obesity drugs. That’s not what they do. With expressive skill, a leading influencer in the fat acceptance movement put her finger on an important issue in the Washington Post this week. On this, we totally agree. If we listen to many social media influencers, […]

Sounds great, looks great, not helpful. That’s how we would sum up the evidence for “fitspiration” social media posts and their influence on personal health. Oxford defines this genre as “a person or thing that serves as motivation for someone to sustain or improve health and fitness.” But a recent systematic review puts a harsher […]

Clickbait journalists are taking aim at clickbait nutrition influencers and we wonder: Who benefits from this fracas? Late last week, the Washington Post ran a story exploring the phenomenon of dietitians who are active in social media. Their thesis: “Registered dietitians are being paid to post videos that promote diet soda, sugar and supplements on […]

Hello darkness, my old friend. Welcome to the sound of silence. Social networks, conceived to connect and inform us, have evolved in a way to polarize and misinform us. Loud voices dominate public narratives on a wide range of subjects and leave us little room for the development of well-informed and nuanced views. Certainly we […]

You might have thought the U.S. government was busy with other stuff. Like writing new dietary guidelines. Or defining what food is naughty or nice. Or perhaps even sorting out problems with bank regulation. Maybe so, but these folks can multitask, so now we have the final word on peanut butter – it’s definitely, certifiably […]