July 3, 2021 — When the words are a challenge, then dealing with a health issue is a challenge. Ask anyone working in mental health or addiction medicine. There was a time when people could not even talk about breast cancer. Betty Ford brought these subjects into public discourse. But obesity remains something that people are not really ready […]
June 6, 2021 — Health stigma is sneaky. Because of that, it pops up in places where we never expect it. For example, we find the wellness section of the New York Times offering advice to dump friends with depression or obesity. Obesity researchers use stigmatizing cartoons to tell us about their good work. Perhaps these people don’t even […]
March 10, 2021 — Normal is not what it once was. Oxford defines normal as something conforming to a standard – usual, typical, or expected. But this year has upset our collective concept of normalcy. Could it be that normal is doomed? Could that be a good thing? Of course, the answers to these questions will depend upon context. […]
February 28, 2021 — Is there a political hot button any hotter right now than cancel culture? The BBC aptly suggests these words have become potent weapons in political culture wars. A former president, voted out of office, defends himself a victim of cancel culture. The list is long for people who feel like aggrieved victims. So perhaps this […]
February 3, 2021 — For people living with obesity, feeling invisible is familiar. For anyone, it’s hard to take. But when a person goes from being invisible to being noticed it can be jolting. Losing weight can do that and thus expose the unspoken bias that routinely confronts people with obesity. Suddenly, people who would once look right through […]
December 4, 2020 — Type 2 diabetes can be a brutal disease. It often, but not always, goes hand in hand with obesity. Thus, both of these conditions are rising throughout the world, exacting a terrible toll on human health. Once again, though, research tells us that a good option exists to turn this back for many people. A […]
November 6, 2020 — The Obesity Journal Symposium at ObesityWeek is a reliable source of new insights. This year’s edition was yesterday and it did not disappoint. Four new papers covered a diverse range of topics with excellence. But two of them are especially notable for challenging some popular thoughts about obesity. First, Emma Stinson et al tells us […]
November 4, 2020 — Many of us are struggling to hold onto a quaint belief in facts. But we’re also learning to deal with ambiguity. Simply because we don’t have all the facts. So we all, to varying degrees, rely on feelings to guide us. Welcome to the world of obesity, where we cope with an imperfect knowledge of […]
November 3, 2020 — Oddly enough, obesity can be a bit of an abstraction. Everybody thinks they know all about it. But in truth, the smartest people who study know how little we know. At the opening of ObesityWeek 2020, though, all that abstract science came face to face with humanity. Perhaps more than we’ve ever seen before, the […]
October 31, 2020 — Lifestyle Medicine is a new open access journal from John Wiley & Sons. The journal claims to set a high standard, with rigorous peer review. But we are not so sure about its ethical standards. Because the journal is promoting a stereotype about people with obesity. A low IQ is a risk factor for obesity, […]
