Australian actor, writer and director Damon Gameau was about to become a father. With a little one on the way and the aim of teaching his future child how to lead a healthy lifestyle, Damon embarked on a 60-day experiment to unravel the truth about sugar. However unlike other films on sugar, which have focused on obvious high […]
Tag: obesity
Richard Smith: What I learnt about non-communicable disease in one afternoon
Most of my work is concerned with non-communicable disease (NCD) in low and middle income countries, so I’ve got to know a fair bit about the subject. But yesterday I spent an afternoon at Imperial College listening to a series of short presentations on NCD in low middle income countries (LMIC), and I learnt a […]
David Buck: Obesity and public health – a taxing issue
Obesity, and its control, is high on the public health agenda. Recently the Lancet published a series of important papers on the science and social science of obesity and its prevention. According to conservative estimates the projected obesity trends in the UK to 2030 imply 5,450,000 new cases of diabetes, 330,000 cases of coronary heart disease and stroke, […]
Peter Lapsley: Effecting behavioural change
It seems unlikely that many of the BMJ’s readers are able to listen to Radio 4 between 8.30 and 9.00 am on a weekday, and even less likely that they could find time to read a 96 page paper by the Institute for Government, signposted on the Today programme a week or so ago, although its […]
Research highlights – 3 June 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Guy Rughani: A waist of money?
“Cash for blubber” is how the Twitter community have dubbed the UK government’s latest bid to tackle obesity. As revealed in the Sunday Telegraph, plans have been made to pay GPs extra for giving their patients “weight management advice” and referring them to publicly financed dieting clubs. But will this nudge fatten wallets or slim […]
Richard Smith: Managing hypertension in a South African township
South Africa suffers from a “quadruple burden” of disease—infectious disease, particularly AIDS and TB; trauma from road traffic injuries and violence; perinatal and maternal health problems; and non-communicable disease. I thought of this burden as we visited the community clinic in Khayelitsha, the largest “township” in Cape Town. […]
Julian Sheather on fat and human freedom
It was the White Queen who told Alice that she had at times thought six contradictory things before breakfast. We humans have a remarkable tolerance for incompatibility, happily living with any number of self-cancelling beliefs about ourselves and the world. So difficult is it to imagine – or at least for me to imagine – […]
Paul Vincent: Practise what you preach
“Judge not, lest you be judged,” so goes the popular Christian refrain. Less known, but equally striking is “Never trust a fat preacher.” Is it ok to judge if you’re a preacher? How can you guide your flock without making the judgement that they need guiding? If you do so judge, do you then have […]
Siddharta Yadav: Waist size story
Last week I attended the 29th Asian Medical Students’ Conference (AMSC) in Tokyo along with 450 other medical students like me from 20 countries in Asia and Pacific. Our aim: to fight non-communicable diseases and promote a healthy lifestyle in the Asia and Pacific. […]