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Many of the decisions I made around my pregnancies were based on the looming specter of “advanced maternal age,” which is typically defined as 35 or older. Rudely, this used to be called a “geriatric pregnancy,” but that term is thankfully now out of fashion. In my head, my 35th birthday was some kind of Cinderella clock, but instead of my coach turning back into a pumpkin, it had me imagining that my eggs would shrivel up and die. (Jessica Grose, 1/5)

When the American Medical Association recognized obesity as a disease in 2013, doctors and other health care workers began to pay greater attention to a condition that is a cause of death for nearly one out of five adults in America. Eight years on, U.S. policies have failed to catch up with medical understanding in addressing this public health crisis. Without the right kinds of policy interventions, nearly half of Americans will have obesity by 2030. (Fatima Cody Stanford and Kelly Copes-Anderson, 1/6)

Eighty percent. It's a daunting percentage that shows how many counties across the U.S. are considered healthcare, or medical, deserts. This was an unacceptable problem even before the COVID-19 pandemic. And now it's revealed a glaring truth as the world manages a global public health crisis—a time when people need more access to and a greater understanding of healthcare. (Onisis Stefas, 1/5)

President’s Biden’s nomination of Robert Califf to head the Food and Drug Administration is in the political crosshairs. Curiously, the attacks are not from the usual suspects. Instead, they are friendly fire discharged by an unlikely trio of Democrats: Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Manchin, who are concerned about Califf’s past involvement with the pharmaceutical industry. These concerns are unwarranted and show a disturbing lack of understanding and superficial knowledge of the experience needed in drug development and clinical research to lead the nation’s leading regulatory agency for therapeutics. (Jeffrey A. Lieberman, 1/5)

This is not the spring of 2020. I no longer receive daily emails warning how low my hospital is on personal protective equipment. We have enough PPE that we can discard items as intended. And I am less afraid that I will die of covid-19 or bring it home to my three young kids. We now have more knowledge about how to prevent and treat infections. But there’s a new scarcity in our health-care system: We’re running dangerously short on hope. And it’s even more crushing than the shortages we faced at the beginning of the pandemic. (Sarah N. Cross, 1/5)

The resurgence of Covid-19 is again leading health care systems across the globe to brace themselves. And with deep scars from early in the pandemic, leaders are again calling on people to get vaccinated. One prominent reason they cite for vaccination is to protect hospitals and health care workers. In the U.S., this message is not working. (Gregory D. Stevens, 1/5)