Fitness Trackers Are Coming for Your Pet

One dreary November Monday as I was enjoying a morning cup of tea, my phone alerted me that my cat, Avalanche, was exercising less than usual. For the past six weeks, Avalanche has worn a sleek black-and-gold collar that tracks her every move—when and how often she sleeps, runs, walks, eats, drinks, and even grooms. … Read more

RFK Jr.’s Testosterone Test – The Atlantic

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s personal health-care routine is perplexing in its inconsistencies. He decries seed oils, despite near scientific consensus that they’re harmless; drinks raw milk, which has been proved to get people sick; and takes testosterone as part of his anti-aging routine while insisting he’s not on anabolic steroids. Some of his routines, such … Read more

The Ozempic Flip-Flop – The Atlantic

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. A few years ago, West Virginia, which has the highest obesity rate in the nation, quietly began a small and unusual pilot program that would touch hundreds of lives: It started covering obesity drugs for state employees—even as … Read more

RFK Jr. Is Seducing America With Wellness

In 1829, the Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham invented a cracker made from coarse wheat that he believed would help restore American health. He lamented the “miserable trash” that made up the average diet, especially white bread, and thought his eponymous crackers would curtail masturbation, which he deemed deleterious to both moral and physical well-being. (As … Read more

Ozempic Killed Diet and Exercise

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has some thoughts about Ozempic. According to the nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, the government should not provide the drug for millions of Americans, but instead address obesity and diabetes by handing out organic food and gym memberships. Like many of RFK’s statements, these ideas have … Read more

Murder Is an Awful Answer for Health-Care Anger

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (Noa) using AI narration. Listen to more stories on the Noa app. Updated at 10:58 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 5, 2024 Two very ugly, uniquely American things happened yesterday: A health-care executive was shot dead, and because he was a health-care executive, people cheered. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian … Read more

Bird Flu Can’t Stop the Thirst for Raw Milk

Across the country, the thirst for an illicit beverage is growing. Raw milk can’t be sold legally for human consumption in many states, but some 11 million Americans drink it anyway as wellness influencers, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., extol its benefits. They do so despite a well-established risk of disease and death: E. coli, … Read more

Do Bedbugs Cause Disease? – The Atlantic

Updated at 11:23 a.m. on December 4, 2024 The second time I freaked out about bedbugs, my landlord suggested I might be overreacting, just a tad. My husband and I had fought back an infestation just five months earlier; now, after finding a single bedbug on my pillow—sated because, I presumed, it’d bitten me—I was … Read more

RFK Jr. Is in the Wrong Agency

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (Noa) using AI narration. Listen to more stories on the Noa app. Leading the Department of Health and Human Services seems, at first glance, like a dream job for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., quite possibly America’s most infamous anti-vaxxer. If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee the agencies that play … Read more

Out-of-State Travel Is the Next Abortion Battlefront

Abortion policy in America is at a stalemate. Republicans will take control of Congress in January, ready to block any national protections—but with a slim majority, making a national ban unlikely. At the state level, pro-choice advocates have focused for the past two years on ballot measures to protect abortion rights. Most of those measures … Read more

America Stopped Cooking With Tallow for a Reason

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest spin on MAGA, “Make frying oil tallow again,” is surprisingly straightforward for a man who has spent decades downplaying his most controversial opinions. Last month, Kennedy argued in an Instagram post that Americans were healthier when restaurants such as McDonald’s cooked fries in beef tallow—that is, cow fat—instead of seed … Read more

It’s Never Too Late to Learn an Instrument

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (Noa) using AI narration. Listen to more stories on the Noa app. The recorder used to be an instrument people wanted to hear. As a 1946 article in The Atlantic explained, it gets mentioned lovingly in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Milton’s Paradise Lost. One 17th-century English-navy leader wrote in … Read more