GLP podcast: ‘Fat acceptance’ harms public health; Consumers don’t want to eat insects; 7 tips for sniffing out pseudoscience

Obesity is a victim status not a serious medical condition, according to the fat-acceptance movement. What does the available evidence say about this increasingly popular refrain? Some environmental advocates claim that replacing meat with insect protein sources will help slow climate change. Can they convince enough of the population to eat bug-based foods? Let’s examine 7 tips that will help you detect pseudoscience as you scroll through social media.

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Join hosts Dr. Liza Dunn and GLP contributor Cameron English on episode 271 of Science Facts and Fallacies as they break down these latest news stories:

• Larding the word ‘overweight’? Social activist post-modernists target ’obesity’ as unnecessarily judgmental

It’s become fashionable in recent years to downplay or even deny the serious health harms caused by obesity. This campaign isn’t grounded in sound scientific arguments, but an ideological assumption that treating excessive weight gain medically is meant to discriminate against overweight people. Let’s take a critical look at the fat-acceptance movement and some of its key claims.

• Yuck factor: Insect protein foods would yield enormous climate change benefits — but acceptance remains a slow slog

Proponents of insect-based foods say they are poised to offer significant climate benefits as more people begin to eat cricket burgers and mealworm protein powder. There’s a problem, however—nobody in the West wants to consume bugs. Social scientists are hard at work trying to devise solutions that will neutralize this “yuck factor,” but they’ve yet to succeed. Will we ever overcome our trepidation about eating insects?

• Sniffing out pseudoscience is easier than you think — Here are 7 key ways

The internet is awash in nonsense, and fresh waves of it are published daily. This leaves the science-minded news consumers alone to separate facts from falsehoods as best as they can. The challenge is even more difficult because trusted sources of information–fact-checkers, journalists and even some scientists–routinely promote misinformation. There’s no perfect solution to the problem, though experts have come up with an invaluable seven-point guide that can help the public identify pseudoscience when they see it.

Dr. Liza Dunn is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Visit his website and follow him on X @camjenglish