June 8, 2023 — Typically, Ruth Marcus writes about justice for the Washington Post. But this week, she posted a very personal essay – “the most personal piece I have ever written” – about her experience with taking Ozempic. More than just a testimonial about the life-changing effects of better obesity care, it became an exploration of the interaction […]
December 27, 2022 — It’s nothing new. Overwhelmingly and for a long time it has been true that obesity care is mainly available to the few and the wealthy. This is the inevitable result of multiple forms of bias that collide in the chronic disease of obesity. Healthcare has a bias for serving the the wealthy. Health systems also […]
April 29, 2022 — What roles do racism and segregation play in the disparate obesity risk for children from some racial and ethnic groups face? Is it race or place that is driving these disparities? How concerned should we be about the trends toward increasing school segregation evident in many regions of the U.S.? These are questions for which […]
February 20, 2022 — The hate crimes trial of three White men in Georgia who chased down and killed a Black man when he ran through their neighborhood is coming to an end. Mercifully, we have not had to listen to any of them testify that they don’t have a racist or hateful bone in their body. But let’s […]
February 17, 2022 — If a patient is Black, health providers are more than twice as likely to put negative words in that patient’s health history. These are descriptors like hysterical, noncompliant, unpleasant, or uncooperative. Those word choices don’t suggest a good relationship with a patient. This conclusion comes from an analysis of records for 18,459 patients, published recently […]
January 2, 2022 — Perhaps this is a familiar pattern – a mixture of good news and bad news. The bad news is likely not really news. Many people are comparing our difficult circumstances of this past year to the so-called dark ages. But the good news is that it isn’t hard to see signs we are set to […]
November 24, 2021 — New data this week in SOARD tells us once again that gastric bypass can produce impressive results over time for someone with severe obesity. After ten years, Su-Hsin Chang and colleagues found that their cohort of 1,104 patients had maintained an average 31 percent reduction in body weight. Best Results for White Women But it […]
November 21, 2021 — In her new book, How the Other Half Eats, Priya Fielding-Singh tells us good nutrition comes in many forms. But the dominant culture often presents a narrow definition of a healthy diet. This happens because we often fix our attention on the merits and faults of specific foods or nutrients. She writes: “Certain items are […]
November 8, 2021 — At ObesityWeek®, we noticed a subtle shift. In past years, health policy discussions have sometimes been stuck on very detailed food fights. But this year, it seems that such food fights were less in the foreground. Instead, we saw a much greater focus than ever before on health equity, disparities, and the people who are […]
November 5, 2021 — We have an equity problem – in healthcare generally and in obesity specifically. Diversity, equity, and inclusion have been a key theme running through ObesityWeek® and thus, there’s plenty of content on this subject to absorb from the meeting. We’re just barely beginning to take it all in. But in a nutshell, serious obesity care […]
