Obesity « Berman Institute Bioethics Bulletin

Features

News roundups

Announcements

If You’re Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry

July 17, 2019

Our Jessica Fanzo on how cycles of poverty make families vulnerable to food insecurity

Quick Read

If You’re Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry

Wednesday, July 17th, 2019

By Jessica Fanzo

The U.S. is notorious for its weight problem. With just 5% of the world’s population, it’s home to 13% of the world’s overweight and obese people. Roughly two-thirds of adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese and, even more alarming, 38% of boys and girls ages 10 to 14 are.

On first glance, these numbers seem to reflect overabundance — Americans have more food than is good for them. But the problem is more complicated than that, and worse: Many of the same people who struggle with extra weight also regularly go to bed hungry. That may sound like an impossible contradiction, but dig deeper, and it quickly becomes clear how hunger and obesity are related. Both are often rooted in poverty.

…continue reading ‘If You’re Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry’

Jessica Fanzo is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of global food and agricultural policy and ethics at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Department of International Health of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. She is on sabbatical for one year to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome.

Be the first to like.

Unlike

Bloomberg Opinion

Watch Now: Jess Fanzo discusses Food Ethics

June 14, 2019

Our Jessica Fanzo on hunger, obesity, food security, and food ethics at the ‘Bringing Johns Hopkins to New York’ event, June 6, 2019

Quick Read

Watch Now: Jess Fanzo discusses Food Ethics

Friday, June 14th, 2019

Be the first to like.

Unlike

Johns Hopkins University

‘Ultraprocessed’ Food May Make You Eat More, Clinical Trial Suggests

May 17, 2019

Something about the industrial processing of food makes us more likely to overeat, according to a new study. Volunteers ate more and gained more weight on a heavily processed diet than an unprocessed one, even when the two diets had the same available calories and nutrients

Quick Read

‘Ultraprocessed’ Food May Make You Eat More, Clinical Trial Suggests

Friday, May 17th, 2019

The study is “a landmark first,” and a “shot over the bow” in a debate over the health of processed food, says Steven Heymsfield, an obesity researcher at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge who was not involved with the work. But some experts question whether the study controlled for important differences between the diets.

The definition of “processed food” is controversial. Nearly all the food at grocery stores is subject to some processing: It’s pasteurized, vacuum sealed, cooked, frozen, fortified, and mixed with preservatives and flavor enhancers. Some of these processes can change its nutritional qualities. And some studies have found associations between processed diets and increased risk of obesity, cancer, and even earlier death, but none has shown a causal link.

Still, some health officials and national governments have seized on processing as a culprit in the global epidemic of obesity and related diseases. The official dietary guidelines of Brazil, for example, recommend that people “limit consumption of processed foods.”

…continue reading ”Ultraprocessed’ Food May Make You Eat More, Clinical Trial Suggests’

Be the first to like.

Unlike

Science

Special Issue: Health and Food Ethics

October 1, 2018

This new special issue, edited by our Jessica Fanzo, investigates some of the compelling ethical issues at stake with food and health. If the global community cannot find solutions to address food quality and access, costs will be high

Quick Read

Special Issue: Health and Food Ethics

Monday, October 1st, 2018

Health and Food Ethics

Gut microbes matter clinically, so diets assembled based on food availability in different markets matter ethically. But that’s just one reason to care about food in health care ethics. Providing safe, nutritious, and environmentally sustainable food to all is a great challenge. Physicians in some US cities have been writing prescriptions for patients to obtain fresh produce through healthy food outreach programs. Clinical encounters, however, cannot fully reverse negative health effects of low-quality diets. If the global community cannot find solutions to address food quality and access, costs will be high. This issue investigates some of the compelling ethical issues at stake with food and health.

Volume 20, Number 10: E911-1000

Full Issue PDF

Table of Contents

Be the first to like.

Unlike

AMA Journal of Ethics

Julia Belluz: What I Learned About Weight Loss From Spending a Day Inside a Metabolic Chamber

September 5, 2018

One of science’s best tools for understanding obesity is debunking myths about metabolism

Quick Read

Julia Belluz: What I Learned About Weight Loss From Spending a Day Inside a Metabolic Chamber

Wednesday, September 5th, 2018

When scientists offer mice or rats a spread of junk food, they consistently find that only some overeat and puff out into little rodent blimps, while others maintain a normal body size.

A similar thing happens in people. In the US, and around the world, we are now overwhelmed with highly palatable, cheap calories. This has helped obesity rates soar on average. But not everyone overeats and becomes overweight, and not everyone who becomes overweight or obese develops illnesses like diabetes or heart disease. This individual variation — why we have different responses to extra calories and weight — is one of the greatest mysteries of modern medicine.

The best place to find answers is an 11-by-11.5-foot room in suburban Washington, DC. This summer, I spent a day there, one of fewer than 100 patients who will do so this year.

…continue reading ‘Julia Belluz: What I Learned About Weight Loss From Spending a Day Inside a Metabolic Chamber’

Image via Animashaun/Vox

Be the first to like.

Unlike

Vox

In Town With Little Water, Coca-Cola Is Everywhere. So Is Diabetes.

July 16, 2018

Maria del Carmen Abadía lives in one of Mexico’s rainiest regions, but she has running water only once every two days. When it does trickle from her tap, the water is so heavily chlorinated, she said, it’s undrinkable

Quick Read

In Town With Little Water, Coca-Cola Is Everywhere. So Is Diabetes.

Monday, July 16th, 2018

SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico — Maria del Carmen Abadía lives in one of Mexico’s rainiest regions, but she has running water only once every two days. When it does trickle from her tap, the water is so heavily chlorinated, she said, it’s undrinkable.

Potable water is increasingly scarce in San Cristóbal de las Casas, a picturesque mountain town in the southeastern state of Chiapas where some neighborhoods have running water just a few times a week, and many households are forced to buy extra water from tanker trucks.

So, many residents drink Coca-Cola, which is produced by a local bottling plant, can be easier to find than bottled water and is almost as cheap.

…continue reading ‘In Town With Little Water, Coca-Cola Is Everywhere. So Is Diabetes.’

Image via Flickr License Some rights reserved by Elsie esq.

Be the first to like.

Unlike

NYTimes

The Obesity Cure Is Out of Reach in the Heaviest States

May 7, 2018

Bariatric surgery works, but hundreds of thousands of eligible patients can’t get it

Quick Read

The Obesity Cure Is Out of Reach in the Heaviest States

Monday, May 7th, 2018

In Mississippi, more than 37 percent of adults are obese, making it the second-most obese state in the nation. But Mississippi is also one of two states, along with Montana, that doesn’t cover bariatric surgery in its Medicaid program, which serves 760,000 people.

One popular type of bariatric surgery, the gastric sleeve, costs between $20,000 and $35,000 without insurance, experts told me. It shrinks the stomach to about the size of a banana, changing the body’s hunger hormones and reducing a person’s natural weight—one they don’t have to starve themselves to stick to. For the morbidly obese, diet and exercise don’t usually have this same effect on their own. (People who lost hundreds of pounds sweating it out on the TV show The Biggest Loser, for example, tended to gain it all back.)

… continue reading ‘The Obesity Cure Is Out of Reach in the Heaviest States’

Image: By https://magenverkleinerung.tips/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62100315

Be the first to like.

Unlike

The Atlantic

Food Swamps Are the New Food Deserts

January 2, 2018

It’s not just a lack of grocery stores that’s making us fat. It’s an overabundance of fast food

Quick Read

Food Swamps Are the New Food Deserts

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018

The term “food desert” conjures the image of a forlorn citizen, wandering through a barren landscape for miles and miles (or, by definition, for more than a mile) to reach the nearest fresh-food market. Populating food deserts with grocery stores is a favored cause among nutrition advocates, but the concept became controversial after some recent studies found the distance to the nearest grocery store doesn’t correlate with a region’s obesity rate.

(Because it’s nutrition, other studies have shown the opposite. Either way, most people would agree it’s nice to be able to buy produce with relative ease, even if doing so doesn’t make you fit into your high-school jeans again.)

Now, new research suggests food deserts might not be the culprit—or at least not the only one—for the high prevalence of obesity in certain areas. Instead, food swamps might be to blame.

Image: By ja:User:Sanjo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12818212

Be the first to like.

Unlike

The Atlantic

Page 1 of 512 3 4 5 »

If You’re Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry

If You’re Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry

Watch Now: Jess Fanzo discusses Food Ethics

Watch Now: Jess Fanzo discusses Food Ethics

‘Ultraprocessed’ Food May Make You Eat More, Clinical Trial Suggests

Special Issue: Health and Food Ethics

Special Issue: Health and Food Ethics

Julia Belluz: What I Learned About Weight Loss From Spending a Day Inside a Metabolic Chamber

Julia Belluz: What I Learned About Weight Loss From Spending a Day Inside a Metabolic Chamber

In Town With Little Water, Coca-Cola Is Everywhere. So Is Diabetes.

In Town With Little Water, Coca-Cola Is Everywhere. So Is Diabetes.

The Obesity Cure Is Out of Reach in the Heaviest States

The Obesity Cure Is Out of Reach in the Heaviest States

Food Swamps Are the New Food Deserts

Food Swamps Are the New Food Deserts

Follow Us

Twitter Feed

Twitter Feed