Prognostic uncertainty about risk creates demand for ongoing communication and facilitated reflection about goals and values.

Empathic communication skills help motivate understanding of safety, significance of harms, impact on succeeding generations, and social consequences.

Physicians should provide women considering abortion after Down syndrome screening with unbiased information and not attempt to influence their decision.

Noninvasive prenatal testing arguably constitutes a form of eugenics in a social context in which certain reproductive outcomes are not valued.

Helping patients mitigate their risk of chronic disease is key, but dietary supplements are risky.

Health professional students often attend lectures equating resiliency with self-care.

Healthist views about body shape and weight are oppressive and lead to pernicious harms, especially to members of vulnerable groups. 

Weight loss is not a safe, effective, or permanent method of health promotion, and pharmacotherapeutical approaches pose specific risks to adolescents. 

Protecting patients rather than informed consent should be the goal when the complexity of information overwhelms patients’ decision-making capacity.

The question of whether and how results from personal genetic testing will motivate behavioral changes in consumers has only begun to receive the research attention it richly deserves.