obesity epidemic

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Heart Risk Linked to Obesity—in Preschoolers

Definitive connection can't be made due to lack of relevant study

(Newser) - Levels of a marker tied to adult heart disease were twice as high in the blood of obese children as in the blood of average-weight kids in a recent study. The twist is that the research subjects were 3 to 5 years old, sparking concerns about the cumulative health effects...

Skinny Americans Escalating War on the Fat

Advocates push for 'sin taxes' and other punitive measures

(Newser) - America’s ever-shrinking population of skinny people is fed up with obesity, and they’re not taking it anymore. Over the last decade, healthy people have advocated increasingly harsh measures penalizing their wider neighbors, the LA Times reports. Some notable offensives:
  • Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University floated a plan to force
...

Low-Carb Diet Linked to Lower Blood Pressure

Both low-fat plan and Atkins-style regimen lead to weight loss

(Newser) - Besides leading to weight loss, a low-carbohydrate diet helps lower blood pressure, according to a new study. Research subjects randomly assigned to a low-carb regimen lost about as much weight as patients following a low-fat plan and taking a weight-loss drug—the generic version of the medication marketed as Alli—...

Biggest Loser Heralds Age of Manly Dieting

Competition makes weight loss socially acceptable

(Newser) - Season 9 of The Biggest Loser debuts today, and given the show's immense popularity—and mixed-gender contestants—it's fair to ask if it isn't indicative of a new, male-oriented take on dieting. "Not long ago, after all, the whole enterprise of weight loss was a girly pursuit," writes...

General Mills Slashes Sugar in Kids' Cereals
 General Mills Slashes 
 Sugar in Kids' Cereals 
third cut in 3 years
Dec 10, 2009 10:06 AM CST

General Mills Slashes Sugar in Kids' Cereals

Cut affects Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, 8 other breakfast treats

(Newser) - General Mills is bowing to consumer pressure and cutting the amount of sugar in all of its cereals aimed at children, the third time in three years the food giant has taken its sweet breakfast treats down a notch. The goal this time is bring the amount of sugar per...

Home Daycare Turns Kids Into Couch Potatoes

Child-care centers do far better at restricting boob tube time

(Newser) - Children in home-based daycare watch far more TV than kids in formal child-care centers, with preschoolers averaging as much as 3.4 hours a day. The numbers in a new survey haven't changed much from stats recorded in previous years, which the researchers say they find "disconcerting, given the...

College Threatens to Fail Students for Obesity

Twenty-five seniors must prove they've lost weight to graduate

(Newser) - Twenty-five seniors at a university in Pennsylvania must prove they've lost weight in order to graduate this spring. The unusual requirement stems from a policy Lincoln University put in place fours ago: Incoming freshmen with a body mass index of 30, the threshold for obesity, must take a nutrition class...

Gut Bacteria Can Make You Fat
 Gut Bacteria Can Make You Fat 
Nov 12, 2009 2:33 PM CST

Gut Bacteria Can Make You Fat

Unhealthy diet encourages efficient micro-organisms

(Newser) - Eating junk food may do a double whammy on your waistline: In addition to the calorie influx, high-fat foods alter intestinal bacteria, actually making it easier to get fat. Obese mice in a new study had significantly more of a specific type of bacteria, Firmicutes, that easily convert food into...

Fat America Won't Need Mittens
 Fat America Won't Need Mittens 
Oct 14, 2009 8:00 AM CDT

Fat America Won't Need Mittens

Study finds overweight have naturally hot hands

(Newser) - America’s ever-expanding waistlines may eventually render mittens obsolete, a new study suggests. Researchers for the NIH found that overweight people generate more heat than their lean peers, but don’t retain it any better. Instead, the heat exits from the hands and feet—so an overweight person’s extremities...

'Obese' 4-Month-Old Denied Insurance

Nursing infant outside norms for age; 'absurd,' cry parents

(Newser) - A Colorado couple is baffled that their baby has been denied health insurance coverage because of a preexisting condition: obesity. “I could understand if we could control what he's eating,” says the boy’s father. “But he's 4 months old. He's breast-feeding. We can't put him on...

Michelle Obama Walks the Walk on Fitness, Health

First lady joins administration's push for more positive habits

(Newser) - The Obama administration's push for better fitness and nutrition starts at the top, with the gym-rat president and garden-planting first lady setting the bar high for a nation of couch potatoes. It's all about moderation, Michelle Obama tells Prevention magazine. "My message to women: Do what makes you feel...

Why We Love Fat TV
 Why We Love Fat TV 
pop culture
Sep 27, 2009 2:25 PM CDT

Why We Love Fat TV

Zaftig reality stars make us feel better about our bulging waistlines: Dumenco

(Newser) - America's obsession with "fattertainment" has become a form of catharsis for an obese nation, Simon Dumenco writes for GQ. Shows like The Biggest Loser and Dance Your Ass Off were at least ostensibly about getting their contestants in shape. But on More to Love, “the participants aren't...

Hula-Hooping Comes Around as Workout Craze

Hooping burns as many calories as running

(Newser) - The hula-hoop is seeing a revival as a fitness tool, with out-of-shape Americans finding twirling a plastic tube a more enjoyable way to burn calories than running or weight-lifting. Companies like HoopGirl and Hoopnotica have seen sales of weighted hula-hoops and enrollment in hoop fitness classes surge. "I finally...

Obesity Growing as Cancer Risk for Women

(Newser) - Being fat could become the leading cause of cancer in women in Western countries in the coming years, say European researchers. Being overweight or obese accounts for up to 8% of cancers in Europe. That figure is poised to increase substantially as the obesity epidemic continues, and as major causes...

Health Experts Call for Soda Tax

Critics say it won't reduce obesity

(Newser) - Health experts say a tax on sugary sodas would take a big bite out of the obesity epidemic, ABC News reports. Taxing "sugar-sweetened beverages is really a double-win," said the co-author of a new paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We can raise much-needed...

Time-Starved Working Parents Eat Poorly: Study

Low-income work schedules make healthy eating difficult

(Newser) - The nature of low-income employment promotes unhealthy eating, Time reports. Over half of working parents in low-to-moderate income communities relied on dietary “coping” measures when their schedules couldn’t accommodate a full meal, according to a new Cornell University study. Those strategies included skipping breakfast or family meals, and...

To Cut Health Costs, Fix the Food Industry

Obesity 'accounts for nearly a tenth' of health-care spending

(Newser) - There’s an “elephant in the room” when it comes to health care reform: American health care costs a bundle in large part because we’re so fat, writes Michael Pollan for the New York Times. President Obama has touched on the issue, but the country hasn’t, and...

Deep-Fried Butter Awaits Texas Fair-Goers, Cardiologists

(Newser) - Warning: Just reading this article may clog your arteries. The man who brought the world such delicacies as "Texas Fried Cookie Dough" and "Fried Coke" has devised an even more over-the-top, uh, food: deep-fried butter. It’s making its debut at the State Fair of Texas as part...

Eat Way Less Added Sugar: Heart Docs

(Newser) - Americans eat more than twice as much added sugar as doctors recommend, and they should cut back to battle obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease, researchers say. Added calories from processed sugar should total no more than 150 for men and 100 for women, the American Heart Association said today....

Surgeon General Nominee Consults for Burger King

Benjamin served on fast-food company's nutritional advisory panel

(Newser) - Burger King has paid Regina Benjamin, President Obama’s pick for surgeon general, $10,000 this year for serving on an advisory panel to the fast-food giant, the Washington Times reports. Administration reps say the Alabama physician used her position on Burger King’s nutritional advisory board to advocate for...

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