To catch up, please glance back at “Obesity Villains Reconsidered” and/or “Obesity Villains Exonerated.” These posts are based on a paper that cast doubt on or debunked some commonly held beliefs about the causes of obesity and supported others. Either way, it encompassed some interesting material and provided a starting place to reassess various bits of received wisdom, because… […] scientists widely and readily acknowledge that multiple factors contribute to obesity including but not necessarily limited to genetic, dietary, economic, psychosocial, reproductive, and pharmacologic facto ..read more

GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, initially used for weight loss and diabetes, are showing promise for treating various conditions beyond their original scope. Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy, along with Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound, are leading this trend. Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound — brand names for drugs semaglutide and tirzepatide — are far and away the most famous members of a booming class of medications known as GLP-1 agonists. These medications mimic a gut hormone called GLP-1. They were initially appr ..read more

This is an extension of the recent post, “Obesity Villains Reconsidered,” which discusses an interesting 2009 paper in which multiple authors looked closely at many accepted or alleged causes of obesity. One of their reactions was to divide pretty much all those possible causes into two subheadings: “food marketing practices” and “institutionally-driven reductions in physical activity” — which for convenience, they called the “big two.” But they also went on to propose quite a number of other causes, in a “more thorough discussion of factors that may be contributing to the obesity epidemic ..read more

The word “multifactorial” has been mentioned here many times before. Thanks to life being how it is, a plethora of factors will always be at work, on us and around us, in pretty much every aspect of human existence. Take the example of auto accidents. Distracted driving is the main cause of them, and then there’s speeding, and drunk driving. Relative to those biggies, the collective impact of deer collisions may be small — but they are still potentially fatal; along with fog, potholes, tailgating, reckless lane-hopping, and other factors that despite being not so statistically prominent, are ..read more

In the realm of weight loss medications, few have captured attention quite like Ozempic. Promising not just significant weight loss but also sustainable results, Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs have garnered a reputation for effectiveness. However, beyond their intended purpose, a curious trend has emerged — the rise of what some term “Ozempic babies.” This phenomenon, where women report getting pregnant while on Ozempic, has sparked intrigue and concern alike. The internet is rife with women sharing their stories, and every platform — from Reddit to TikTok to mainstream news channels and heavy ..read more

A billion of anything is quite a landmark. A person might think it would warrant some kind of celebration. But no. The Lancet just went with a sober headline: “More than one billion people in the world are now living with obesity, global analysis suggests.” Here’s more: In total, an estimated nearly 880 million adults were living with obesity in 2022 (504 million women and 374 million men)… Combined with the 159 million children living with obesity in 2022, this is a total of over one billion people affected by obesity in 2022. The article talks about a study funded by a trio of venerable i ..read more

Here is an example of everyday craziness that we somehow manage to calmly assimilate and probably not even notice. A person may speak of raising funds for charity. Of course we know what that means. They want to collect some money from people who have it, to spend on helping people who don’t. But… a person may speak of raising funds for birth defects, or for COVID-19. Of course we know what that means. They hope to finance some needed research that can put a stop to deformed fetuses or coronavirus. But despite using the same operative word, “for,” the two ambitions are exactly opposite. In th ..read more

A few years back, an ultimatum was issued to former high school valedictorian Ryan Trahan. The Texas A&M student and star athlete was told that he must either give up running and promoting his water bottle business or quit school. But the youth was not enthralled with the idea of earning a degree only to score a corporate job, anyway. He left, to follow his own dream of creating something from nothing and building a meaningful life from the ground up. Now 26 years old, although technically labeled with the dreaded stigma of college dropout, Trahan has founded a few businesses and become a ..read more

In the past, Childhood Obesity News published a series of posts around the theme of “wider education,” a corny pun on the well-known phrase “higher education” which means going to college. That qualification alone can include different life situations. One kid stays with the family, or at least in the hometown, and commutes to school. Another travels to the opposite end of the country and takes up residence in a totally different environment, among mainly strangers. Generally, we tend to think of young adults as a pretty hardy species, which is borne out by their tendency to subject themselve ..read more

For over a decade, there has been a growing conviction that using BMI as the obesity measurement standard is unrealistic, especially where females are concerned. And people with a lot of lean body mass. And in field settings where accurate scales are not available. And among some ethnic groups. One study found that as many as one-quarter of the kids with excess body fat were not being identified in a timely and appropriate manner. So, for quite a while now, it has become increasingly apparent that waist-to-height ratio is the way to go. Recently, there has been a resurgence of this sentiment ..read more