The FREAK-est Links
Limiting child access to TV and Internet can lower their weight. (Earlier) Is online therapy the future of mental health treatment? Is Google recession-proof? (Earlier) 140-year-old math problem solved. (Earlier)
Limiting child access to TV and Internet can lower their weight. (Earlier) Is online therapy the future of mental health treatment? Is Google recession-proof? (Earlier) 140-year-old math problem solved. (Earlier)
Prenatal lead exposure linked to male obesity. (Earlier) Researchers test Iraqi teenagers’ self-esteem. Cities in Japan, Sardinia, California boast the world’s longest-living populations. Helvetica makes list of “Top Ten new releases to inspire social change.” (Earlier)
Obesity linked to higher cancer risks. (Earlier) The Wii continues to dominate the industry. (Earlier) Is human sexuality an “evolutionary arms race”? How should corporations approach philanthropy? Becker and Posner speak. (Earlier)
Personal unhappiness may boost spending. New Web site lets users create their own carbon tax. (Earlier) Artificial sweeteners may cause more weight gain than sugar. (Earlier) Does all corporate culture have to be evil?
We’ve blogged about obesity at length here at Freakonomics. The health economist Eric Finkelstein has been studying the subject for years, and, along with co-author Laurie Zuckerman, has just published a book, The Fattening of America, which analyzes the causes and consequences of obesity in the U.S. Finkelstein agreed to answer our questions about the book. Q: You state that . . .
Virgin to become the first airline to test biofuels. (Earlier) The “6 degrees of separation” theory fades under pressure. Is obesity really so bad? Sex workers expect business boom from DNC, though less than from GOP. (Earlier)
We recently wrote about the use of commitment devices in weight loss, particularly the recent spike in bariatric surgery. While advocates can make a strong argument in favor of the surgery, especially for the morbidly obese, it is obviously a pretty drastic resort. An article in the current Journal of the American Medical Association highlights a far less invasive commitment . . .
That is the subject of our most recent Times Magazine column, with some background research and other related material posted here. As in many of our columns, we pair a particular subject (in this case, weight-loss — a.k.a. bariatric — surgery) with an economics concept (in this case, a commitment device). Sometimes these pairings can be a bit of a . . .
Read the Column » For their Nov. 18, 2007, “Freakonomics” column, Dubner and Levitt revisit a favorite topic: unconventional weight loss. In September 2005, they wrote about Seth Roberts, who shed 40 pounds with a diet he crafted through years of meticulous self-experimentation. This week’s column digs into the risks and benefits of using surgery to combat obesity. This blog . . .
In almost all countries, women are more likely to be obese than men. The economists Anne Case and Alicia Menendez set out to learn why, using data collected from a township outside of Cape Town, South Africa. Here’s what they determined: 1. “Women who were nutritionally deprived as children are significantly more likely to be obese as adults, while men . . .
Submit your entries for the new NASA slogan. Will humans evolve based on high carb diets? (Earlier) The latest in prediction markets: how good will a new product be? Vote for the future of Boston’s energy, design and healthcare.
New book advocates following your gut. U.S. obesity rates keep on climbing. (Earlier) Ways to avoid hospital-transmitted infections. (Earlier) Red Lobster launches health-conscious Web site. (Earlier)
We need your help with a little social experiment. Between 1980 and 2005, the amount of shrimp consumed by Americans nearly tripled, from 1.4 pounds per person to 4.1 pounds per person. Shane Frederick, an M.I.T. management professor, has made a hobby of asking anyone he meets why Americans eat so much more shrimp today than they did 25 years . . .
Is obesity really the Black Plague the media makes it out to be? Is the “overweight epidemic” real? We’ve assembled a team of prominent economists, doctors, authors and experts to offer inside views on health, nutrition, and whether America is eating itself to death.
In testimony before the Senate health committee, James Holsinger, President Bush‘s nominee for Surgeon General, listed his three top priorities if approved. According to the New York Times, these priorities would be: “tackling childhood obesity, ‘making America a tobacco-free nation’ and improving the ability of the Public Health Service to respond to emergencies.” While these priorities are certainly in sync . . .
Given my father’s medical specialty, you might think I’m referring to intestinal gas. Actually, though, I am talking about the kind of gas you put in your fuel tank. In a recent study, researchers at the University of Illinois have calculated how much extra gasoline is being used each year because Americans weigh more and thus require more fuel to . . .
It is hard to tune out all the talk about obesity in this country. In the past, such talk has led me to ponder how serious the problem really is, how obesity is measured, etc. It has even led to the suggestion that higher oil prices may help curtail U.S. obesity. Now here is a new working paper called “Why . . .
There is so much noise these days about obesity that it can be hard to figure out what’s important about the issue and what’s not. To try to keep track, I sometimes divide the obesity issue into three questions. 1. Why has the U.S. obesity rate risen so much? Many, many answers to this question have been offered, most of . . .
J. Eric Oliver has a new book called Fat Politics. I had lunch with the author (he is a professor in the Political Science department at the University of Chicago) about six months ago and was thoroughly entertained by the stories he told from this book. He let me read an early draft of the book, and I really liked . . .
Here’s another post from Seth Roberts, our guest blogger. If you need to get up to speed on Seth’s unorthodox research with weight-loss, mood, and sleep, click here (our N.Y. Times article about Seth), here (research extras and pix), here (the first round of reader comments), and here (for Seth’s first guest-blog, including comments and questions). GUEST BLOGGER: Dietary Non-Advice . . .
In yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, we wrote about a Berkeley psychology professor, Seth Roberts, whose intriguing history of self-experimentation has led to, among other things, a very interesting new diet. Click here to read the article and here for some extras, including Seth’s academic papers, photos, etc. Because there has been great interest in the article, we asked Seth . . .
The September 11, 2005, Freakonomics column concerns Seth Roberts, a Berkeley psychologist whose very long and frequently strange history of self-experimentation has led to, among other things, a revolutionary new diet. This blog post supplies additional research material.
The American Beverage Association has just announced its recommendation that elementary schools no longer sell soda pop in vending machines. “Childhood obesity is a real problem,” ABA president and CEO Susan Neely told the Associated Press. (Here is the A.P. article in USA Today.) “The individual companies [represented by the ABA] have been doing several things to be part of . . .
First, let me start by saying that we know we have been remiss about posting on the blog. Tomorrow, there will be a blow-by-blow account of our California trip. Until then, let me just throw out a little something. I was shocked to hear that Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. declared bankruptcy. Not because I’m surprised that the number of people on . . .
The prices at McDonald’s didn’t go down yesterday, but eating fatty foods nonetheless just got a lot cheaper. A new study released by the CDC is described in news reports as follows: The death toll from obesity is less than a third of the government’s previous estimate, researchers are reporting today, contradicting warnings that poor diet and physical inactivity are . . .