It all comes down to willpower, right? Strength of purpose. Muster the resolve to skip dessert, and you have a shot at losing that spare tire hanging off your belly. Succumb to your temptations, however, and you are simply being weak. But is it just weakness that causes us to overeat? A study in Psychological Science suggests…
Sarah Kliff, one of my favorite journalists, had a really nice write up on the burrito study recently published by a wonderful student at Duke, Peggy Liu. Here is an excerpt from her write up, and a link to the full article: For anyone counting calories, the Chipotle menu may be among the world’s least helpful…
In a recent post, I excoriated athletes like LeBron James and Peyton Manning for endorsing unhealthy junk foods – for fattening their wallets by fattening our population. A recent study in Health Affairs provides a powerful illustration of the future effects of these fatty foods. The study is a rather dry and technical one, involving statistical predictions of population health demographics (Zzzz) using a health…
Here’s a new study I conducted with Peggy Liu, Jim Bettman, and Arianna Uhalde on calorie range information. Check it out below. Liu, Peggy J., James R. Bettman, Arianna R. Uhalde, and Peter A. Ubel (forthcoming), “How Many Calories Are in My Burrito? Improving Consumers’ Understanding of Calorie Range Information,” Public Health Nutrition. DOI link….
Just came across an interesting way to try to motivate people to exert themselves: post calories-burned-counts on the stairs. Would that work for you? For me, it would probably make me look down while walking up, only to trip, fall backwards, crack my head, all the while asking myself: “What the heck is a kcal…
There has been controversy recently about whether obesity is truly bad for people’s health, or in fact whether it might even protect people from early mortality. A study from the New England Journal in January provides strong evidence that obesity kills. It shows that people with very low body mass index have high mortality rates,…
In a very influential 2009 New Yorker essay, Atul Gawande described why health care spending is rampant in McAllen, Texas, an example of the regional variations in healthcare utilization that policy experts at Dartmouth have been studying for years. Indeed, this research has shown much higher spending in places like McAllen, compared to cities like Salem,…
In a recently published article, a team of researchers showed that a simple graphical cue, showing people which foods are healthy and unhealthy, significantly improve their eating behaviors. Here is a nice summary of the study results, as summarized on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website: With a problem as large as America’s obesity epidemic,…
This idea is so crazy it might just be the best one I’ve heard all week: a subway station in Moscow provides free tickets to commuters who stand in front of a monitor and squat or lunge 30 times. I love this idea. Have any of you heard of any other nudges like this? (Click…
Inquisitor.com just picked up my recent Forbes post on Lebron James, and ran with it (even though, of course, that is the wrong sports metaphor for me to use). Here is their story on my story: Forbes contributor Peter Ubel calls LeBron James the “King of Junk Food,” in a recent column for the business-finance mag….