Living Closer To A Supermarket Helped Children Achieve A Healthier Weight In An Obesity Intervention4/5/2016  In previous studies, we investigated if distance to a supermarket was associated with a child’s BMI or weight status. However, these studies only measured one point in time, and we wanted to know if children participating in an obesity intervention who lived closer to a supermarket would do better than those living farther away. Our findings from this study were recently published in the American Journal of Public Health.
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 Oprah -- yes, THE Oprah -- recently made headline news with her $43 million dollar investment in the diet company Weight Watchers. She also announced that she is now actively participating in their famous “points” program. While I admire her for being so public with her weight struggles over the years, I started thinking about why some individuals spend half their lives trying to lose weight and keep it off, and others never count a calorie (or point or carb) in their entire life.
 Recently, I was speaking with a student about income and weight in the United States, and he described the difference he saw between his hometown in rural California, where many people appeared obese, and Cambridge (and especially Harvard), where seeing someone with overweight or obesity was a rarity. While it’s true that in the United States, socioeconomic status and rates of obesity tend to be inversely related – with lower-income groups tending to have higher obesity rates, and vice versa – other, rapidly developing countries are wrestling with high rates of both underweight and obesity, also known as the dual burden.
 Obesity is one of the greatest current public health concerns, as it is a major risk factor for metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of risk factors that raises risk for heart disease and other health problems.
 In my practice as a weight management physician, I routinely see patients with medication lists that are a mile long. This is not entirely unexpected. With obesity comes comorbid disease, and with disease often comes pharmacotherapy. In fact, it’s not unusual to see people on 10 or more medications when they first walk into my office. As a result, one of the first questions I usually ask myself is not, “What new medication can I start this patient on?”, but rather, “What old medication(s) can I stop?”
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