@stephenjdowns
Co-founder of @buildingh.bsky.social, working to build health into everyday life. Teaching at @itp-ima-nyu.bsky.social and Stanford d.school. Former chief technology and strategy officer at @rwjf.bsky.social.
We also featured this piece, from Priya Krishna in @nytimes.com, on the massive influence that food delivery is having on the way we eat, in Monday's newsletter: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/d...
Also popular in Monday's newsletter was this essay, by Van Newkirk in @theatlantic.com, on the root causes of so many of our health problems in the US.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
The most popular story from yesterday's newsletter was this report, from Eve Lu in @sciam.bsky.social on the role of a city's walkability in, well, getting people to walk more.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/movi...
Remember when we thought all it would take to fix society’s problems was a little nudge, here and there? For our latest newsletter, we look at the critique, from Loewenstein & Chater, that nudges shift the focus from the systemic forces that sustain the problems. mailchi.mp/733f27018448...
thanks!
This would suggest an opportunity for more varied form factors -- i.e. 1 or 2-passenger vehicles, to go along with more traditional 4-5 passenger vehicles for groups. Any sense of the distribution of passengers per trip for Waymo now?
New paper projects that US obesity will increase from 42.5% to 46.9% by 2035.
I'm betting against it. By 2035, I think obesity rates will be lower than they are today.
Drugs, obviously.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
The approach of identifying problematic design features is significant (vs. blanket bans by age, for example)
For our latest newsletter, we look at the new Dietary Guidelines for America — what people are saying about it and what it means in the context of a food system dominated by ultraprocessed foods. And more… mailchi.mp/44fb99628b19...
unconscionable
powerful and clear from @marionnestle.bsky.social:
"If the government leaves it to you to 'do your own research' and fight the food system on your own, it is saying it has no responsibility for creating a food environment that can help you eat and enjoy real food.
It’s all on you."
Read about @thgoetz.bsky.social‘s excellent new podcast in the latest @buildingh.bsky.social newsletter and, better yet, listen to the first episode at drugstory.co
In this week’s Optimizer, I buy an experimental “GLP-3” drug off the gray market after five minutes on TikTok.
The Wellness Wild West is unregulated and people are turning themselves into guinea pigs with unapproved weight loss drugs.
www.theverge.com/column/84640...
I got a sneak peek at this series and it is … so good!
🤦🏻♂️
Tx for flagging, @thgoetz.bsky.social -what a well-done visual feature, kudos @alicecallahan.bsky.social & team. The impact of a changing food environment is also key theme of important book by nutrition scientist @kevinh-phd.bsky.social & @juliabelluz.bsky.social timmermanreport.com/2025/10/food...
With the news on ultraprocessed foods this week, it's worth going back to this excellent explainer, from @alicecallahan.bsky.social, on how we got to where we are today: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
NEW: A risk assessment found that leading general-use chatbots — ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, and Claude — are "fundamentally unsafe" for teen mental health support, failing to catch important red flags and responding inappropriately to users exhibiting signs of crisis.
futurism.com/artificial-i...
Kudos to funders @neenap.bsky.social and @bloombergdotorg.bsky.social and all of the contributors for the moral clarity of this work.
At the launch of the @thelancet.com series on ultraprocessed foods, the speakers are making it crystal clear: the economic engine we use to produce the food system is hopelessly -- and dangerously -- at odds with societal goals for people’s health and the environment.
Smells like car bloat:
"More than 3,800 people were killed almost immediately when they were struck in 2023, an indication that high speeds and larger vehicles are making impacts more violent. The rate at which pedestrians are declared dead at the scene of the crash has more than doubled."
The Applied Exercise Science at the Univ Michigan has launched two searches for tenure-line (open-rank) and clinical (asst/assoc prof) faculty colleagues with expertise in the Social and Behavioral Sciences of Physical Activity.
Incredible- Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, documents seen by Reuters show. And the social media giant internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day."
