Posts Tagged ‘wellness’

Weight Watchers has just performed a neat trick. It lost a ton of dead weight and gained 4.5 percent on its stock price. All in one day. Henceforth, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers shall be simply WW. Wellness that Works.™ A Long Time Coming The handwriting has been on the wall for years […]

This is a plea for perspective. For all of human history, people have yearned for longer and healthier lives. That pursuit became an obsession for some notable entrepreneurs in the Victorian era. For example, the wellness obsessions of John Harvey Kellogg and C.W. Post gave us Corn Flakes and Grape-Nuts. They became big brands through […]

The booming wellness industry is having quite a run in the news this week. It started with a lengthy examination of Gwyneth Paltrow’s business of monetizing empty wellness claims. Then, we learned that UNC is teaching some startling wellness concepts to all of its undergraduates. Cancer, dementia, and obesity (of course) are simply diseases of […]

“Have We Lost Our Food Skills and How to Get Them Back” was the bait-clicky headline of a recent piece in the Sydney Morning Herald. The article by Paula Goodyer with contributions from dietitians including Profs. Clare Collins and Margaret Allman-Farinelli makes the point that “a host of factors have led to a generation who […]

What happens when a distinguished public university starts buying a canned wellness curriculum from a for-profit wellness venture? Well, in the case of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, you wake up to find that all your students are learning that cancer is a choice. We wish we were making this up. But […]

We live in an age of truth decay. Rand researchers have a book for you on the political phenomenon. But you can also find a business model for health and wellness that relies on a disregard for facts. In the New York Times Magazine this week, Taffy Brodesser-Akner explains Gwyneth Paltrow’s strategy for monetizing outrageous health […]

It’s becoming a popular story. Maybe you shouldn’t worry so much about what you eat. Instead you should focus on when you eat. Meal timing is a hot concept among health writers right now. Professor Satchin is selling a new book, The Circadian Code, with a promise to “transform your health.” The New York Times ran […]

Regular physical activity is a key part of a healthy lifestyle. But when a young athlete takes fitness and training to the extreme, this behavior can quickly become unhealthy. In some cases, it can put individuals at risk for serious injury or even permanent harm. Parents, peers, and instructors alike must learn to recognize certain […]

Writing in the Washington Post, dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield has a simple cure for weight stigma in healthcare. Stop weighing heavier patients, she says. Healthcare might improve. To make her point, she tells the story of Bernie Salazar. He was an “at-home” winner of The Biggest Loser. Visiting with a relatively new doctor, he felt shame and […]

Everywhere we turn, marketers are selling health and wellness. Today, our hotel is telling us, “Eat Well. Enhance Your Well-Being.” Who knew they cared so much? Yesterday, some of the sharpest minds in consumer health gathered to consider the future of consumer self-care. These people are seeking innovation for consumer health. And of course, they […]