“How Companies Scour Our Digital Lives for Clues to Our Health” – The New York Times, February 25, 2018. Your digital footprint — how often you post on social media or how frequently you check your phone late at night — could hold clues to your physical and mental health. And this is the theory behind an emerging field, digital phenotyping, that is trying to assess people’s well-being based on their interactions with digital devices.
Prediction: conspicuous consumption of tangible wellness goods (luxury spa treatments, gym memberships, wearables, etc.) will be trumped by the consumption of more intangible wellness “goods” with more scarcity value (so more cache): like choosing a neighbourhood that doesn’t require a car, has a less polluted local environment or access to fresh food/nature.
Some argue that medical tourism revenues help developing/poorer countries like India grow its healthcare system and improve local care. Others claim that it merely shifts resources to private hospitals catering to elites at the expense of public institutions serving the poor (86 percent of India’s rural population lacks health insurance).
Earlier reports claimed that the U.S. was finally making headway with childhood obesity, but those hopes were crushed this week as a new Duke University study showed that’s not the case: The percentage of obese children ages 2-19 increased from 14% in 1999 to 18.5% in 2016. Very worrying: A big jump in obesity among the youngest children aged 2-5 – from 9% to 14%. Researchers noted: ”The earlier you start seeing obesity, the harder it is to address it.” Fresh evidence that the GWI’s Wellness Moonshot for a world free of preventable disease needs to focus on the youngest children.
Weight loss advice has long been about counting calories, but a new, large, expensive ($8 million) study led by Stanford Prevention Research Center throws that wisdom into serious doubt: it’s diet quality (cutting back on sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods, while focusing on vegetables and whole foods) that led to people losing significant amounts of weight over the course of a year – with no worrying about portion size or whether it was a low-fat or low-carb diet.
Starting March 1, 2018, students from around the world will have an opportunity to submit their most innovative wellness idea to the Global Wellness Summit’s Shark Tank of Wellness competition. This unique global challenge offers university students the opportunity to attend the 2018 Global Wellness Summit in Italy, as well as win significant money for their project. Submissions accepted March 1 – June 1, 2018. Let college students interested in wellness know!
