Category Archives: Public Health

Early Ebola Intervention

As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I’m a big believer in being rational about charity. Ideally, one has several independent randomized controlled trials on which to decide how cost-effective an intervention. But sometimes that just isn’t possible. Disease outbreaks are a … Continue reading

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Obesity Policy Interventions

This will be the final entry in my series on obesity. I looked at demographics and causes, now the big question: What to do? People have proposed a tax on fatty foods, which sounds somewhat reasonable. In general one would … Continue reading

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Heritability and Genetics of Obesity

Most studies which look at this question simply look at parents and children and calculate the correlation between the two factors. It’s well established that obese parents are more likely to have obese children , although that doesn’t tell us … Continue reading

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Obesity internationally

As I mentioned in the last post, richer countries tend to be heavier. Let’s take a look at a map (click for source and interactive version): Right away we see the west as heavier, although that may be a consequence … Continue reading

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Demographics of obesity

Society is getting bigger, but it’s not getting bigger uniformly. There are variations based on geography, occupation, race, income, religion, shoe size, you name it. Let’s start with the US. Geography

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