Featured series 
Tag: Obesity
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Nation & World
Patterns of obesity prove resilient
The Harvard Chan School’s Walter Willett discusses recent findings on obesity, blood pressure, and smoking.
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Nation & World
Keeping an eye on screen time
With parents and kids in back-to-school mode, refocusing on the daily demands of homework, sports, and activities, time spent staring at a screen comes at a premium. Steven Gortmaker, professor of the practice of health sociology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has been studying how we have used and sometimes abused…
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Nation & World
Weighed down
Harvard anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh’s new book, “Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America’s War on Fat,” delves deep into the national obsession with thinness.
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Nation & World
Vital genes in fat production found
Scientists at Harvard Stem Cell Institute have found a way to both make more energy-burning human brown fat cells and make the cells themselves more active, a discovery that could have therapeutic potential for diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases.
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Nation & World
Obesity epidemic needs new approach
Researchers call the notion that obesity is driven by either personal choice or the environment a false dichotomy, and suggest that these competing perspectives be merged to show the reciprocal relationship between the individual and the places he or she lives and eats.
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Nation & World
Women with heart risk
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women in the United States, deadlier than all forms of cancer combined. The good news is that up to 90 percent of heart disease may be preventable.
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Nation & World
Year born may determine obesity risk
Framingham Heart Study, PNAS Early Edition, Harvard Medical School Investigators working to unravel the impact of genetics versus environment on traits such as obesity may also need to consider a new factor: when individuals were born.
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Nation & World
Using weights to target belly fat
A Harvard study found that men who did 20 minutes of daily weight training had less increase in age-related abdominal fat than men who spent the same amount of time doing aerobic activities.
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Nation & World
A pill to shed fat?
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have taken what they describe as “the first step toward a pill that can replace the treadmill” for the control of obesity.
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Nation & World
Obesity risk stronger among siblings
A new study found that two-child families present five times more risk of sibling obesity than single-child homes with an obese parent, which doubles the risk. Obesity risk is even stronger among same-gender siblings.
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Nation & World
A healthy replacement for dieting
Three specialists spoke to students about the benefits of intuitive eating in an event at Sever Hall.
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Nation & World
Genetic link between fried foods and obesity?
Harvard researchers have released the first study to show that the adverse effects of fried foods may vary depending on the genetic makeup of the individual.
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Nation & World
‘Beige’ cells key to healthy fat
“Beige fat” cells found in healthy subcutaneous fat in mice play a critical role in protecting the body against the disease risks of obesity, report Harvard researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who say their study findings may have implications for therapy of obesity-related illness in humans.
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Nation & World
The whys of rising obesity
A panel discussion held by the Forum at Harvard School of Public Health probed the reasons for the modern epidemic of overeating and its particularly harmful effects on children, who are especially susceptible to food marketing.
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Nation & World
The good life, longer
By synthesizing the data collected in multiple government-sponsored health surveys conducted in recent decades, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard University, and the University of Massachusetts were able to measure how the quality-adjusted life expectancy of Americans has changed over time.
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Nation & World
Following the swarm
Australian scientist Stephen Simpson’s locust research has led to insights on human nutrition.
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Nation & World
Healthy menus for people and planet
Harvard nutrition experts and leaders of the food industry met this week at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge to discuss recommendations for changing menus of everything from restaurants to cafeterias to prepared foods in an effort to improve the American diet and lessen the environmental impact of the foods we eat.
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Nation & World
Giants behind, challenges ahead
Fifty years after its founding, the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Global Health and Population took time for reflection and a look ahead on April 25 during an all-day symposium at the School.
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Nation & World
Not as evolved as we think
Lest you think you’re at the top of the evolutionary heap, looking down your highly evolved nose at the earth’s lesser creatures, Marlene Zuk has a message for you: When it comes to evolution, there is no high or low, no better or worse.
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Nation & World
Major weight loss tied to microbes
In a study conducted by Harvard and MGH researchers, gut microbes of mice underwent drastic changes following gastric bypass surgery, and transfer of the microbes into sterile mice resulted in rapid weight loss.
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Nation & World
Weight and mortality
In January, when the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a meta-analysis of 100 studies that probed the relationship between body mass index and mortality — studies that found slightly overweight people have lower all-cause mortality than normal weight and underweight people — media around the globe trumpeted the news.
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Nation & World
Kids are what they eat
Sugary cereals, oversized soft drinks, and quarter-pound cheeseburgers are among the unhealthy food choices kids face daily. Junk food, most of it highly processed, and sugar-sweetened beverages are major contributors to the childhood obesity epidemic.
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Nation & World
Targeting childhood obesity early
With childhood obesity now affecting 17 percent of American children, the nation is rallying around the concept that serious action is required. Harvard researchers have identified some key triggers for obesity in early childhood.
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Nation & World
Fat fighters found in fat tissue
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have found that a type of immune cell plays a role in guarding against obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease.
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Nation & World
Health in the balance
In research, treatment, and outreach, researchers from Harvard Medical School are taking on the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States. This is the first in a three-part series.
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Nation & World
Alcohol abuse after weight loss surgery?
Experts on the use of bariatric surgery for the treatment of obesity gathered at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study earlier this month for a two-day seminar examining new evidence that stomach surgery for the treatment of obesity has unexpected side effects, including an increased incidence of alcohol abuse among patients.
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Nation & World
A time was had by all
A fond look back at the memorable events of Harvard’s 375th year.
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Nation & World
2009 flu could have echoed 1918
David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer, believes that the relatively mild 2009 global flu outbreak might have been as deadly as the 1918 Spanish flu that killed millions, if not for improved scientific, public health, and medical practices.
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Nation & World
Obesity? Diabetes? We’ve been set up
The twin epidemics of obesity and its cousin, diabetes, have been the target of numerous studies at Harvard and its affiliated hospitals and institutions. Harvard researchers have produced a dizzying array of findings on the often related problems.
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Nation & World
Making the World Smaller – Daniel Lieberman – Harvard Thinks Big
Daniel Lieberman Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology