There is, of course, stuff we can chew and swallow that isn’t food. Play-Doh comes to mind. As does Silly Putty.
My thoughts turned to those substances, among others, when my friends at Time magazine asked me recently to opine on the suggestion that junk foods should carry warning labels. My first inclination was: No, that’s too much. But then it dawned on me: Is anything that …
Stephanie wrote in about a very common problem:
My daughter is 4 years old. She isn’t the tallest cat in town (she is about the 15th-25th percentile for height), and her BMI always ends up being in the high range (like over 85%). I worry about it. I am very health conscious for myself and my family. We live by all of the “rules.” And yet.
The family doctor doesn’t worry — …
The recent concentration of misleading media hooey about health has been excruciating, but the problem is perennial. I trust I needn’t make the case that you are under constant assault by distorted, contorted, titillating, and insipid headlines. This is certainly true in my domain of health and medicine; it may well be true more generally, but I tend to limit my commentary to the realm of my actual expertise. But to …
Weight is not a behavior, and weight is not a choice. Nobody wakes up and decides what to weigh today. In an age when healthy and unhealthy behaviors are increasingly subject to incentives and disincentives, respectively, this is all too easily forgotten.
Of course, weight is largely the byproduct of behaviors and choices, namely what and how much we eat, and what and how much we do: calories in and calories …
Lebron James makes over $19 million per year playing basketball for the Miami Heat. Not surprisingly, this salary is peanuts compared his endorsement earnings, which in 2012 topped $42 million. Although perhaps peanuts is the wrong word to use when discussing James outside earnings, which to my knowledge have not involved foods anywhere near as healthy as peanuts. Instead, according to …
However you see the Reverend Al Sharpton, one thing is certain: you see less of him now. His Twitter pic tells you he is proud of his 167-pound weight loss. Good for him, he should be.
If you care about health, the disappearance of the Sharpton-of-old is worth mention. His story teaches us a lot, and, if one dares to look a little …
Recently, food has become the center of a revival of interest in cultures that make up Chicago.
The smells, tastes, sounds, and even atmospheres created by cuisine allow both tourists and native Chicagoans to sample our city’s diverse cultural heritage. As such, food has become an increasingly popular and a relatively inexpensive way to enjoy what Chicago has to offer. In fact, one …
Today in clinic, I interviewed a formerly morbidly obese woman. She has lost almost 300 pounds since undergoing gastric bypass surgery a few years ago, a presentation that has become increasingly common. She was here to see the plastic surgeon for her four week follow up appointment, status post abdominal skin flap removal.
See, after losing a ton of weight, loose skin remains, especially in places like the arms and abdomen. …
Nathan Pritikin: 69. Robert Atkins: 72. Roy Walford: 79. Adelle Davis: 70. Aveline Kushi: 78. Marjorie Shostak: 51. Jack LaLanne: 96. Ancel Keys:100.
David Murdock is a billionaire who believes that he knows the formula for the perfect diet. Not only has he built his own research institute to refine his theories, but he is confident that his food choices will keep him alive to the age of 125. This would …
Ah, the addictive power of modern food. Never underestimate it.
On a recent trip to New York I happened to be flipping through the channels on my in-flight TV when I ran across Mike Huckabee doing an interview on Fox News. I was surprised to see that he had gained his weight back. The former governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate had staked quite a bit on the success of his …
“Discrimination against heavy people, by the general public and medical professionals, might be a greater health and social problem than any extra pounds they may be carrying” argues UCLA Professor Abigal Saguy, PhD, in a provocative essay in the Washington Post.
“Despite the fact that body weight is largely determined by an individual’s biology, genetics and social environment, medical providers often blame patients for their weight and blame their …
Something that has been on my mind recently is obesity, specifically obesity in doctors. This may be because we cover obesity in a high percentage of our stories (1 in 3 Americans is obese, after all) or because I recently discovered that I gained ten pounds since moving to New York City. Either way, after watching Dr. Snyderman speak her mind on national television about how obese leaders are unfit …
And issue of Newsweek quotes me as saying, “A lot of our weight-loss recommendations are unethical because we shouldn’t be saying lose weight when there is no chance people will keep it off.“
This quote appears in the context of a lengthy article by Daniel Heimpel that examines whether or not the obesity epidemic is being oversold.
While I personally do not think that the obesity epidemic is being oversold, I do …
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I’ve written many times that losing weight is the second hardest thing I ask my patients to do. (Breaking an addiction like smoking or alcoholism is the hardest.) The frustrating thing is how little we know about how to lose weight successfully. But we are learning more all the time about why losing weight is so difficult.
Much about dieting and weight loss is poorly understood, but let’s first lay out …
On the first day of the 1st Caribbean Obesity Forum, I presented various talks on obesity – its economic implications, its assessment and the need for firmly anchoring obesity treatment in primary care.
Interestingly, several family doctors in the audience raised the interesting issue that here on Barbados (as probably on other islands) many patients are actually quite happy with their weights.
One family physician noted in his presentation the case of …
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