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TweetHarvard researchers challenge results of obesity analysis
February 23, 2013
In January, when the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a meta-analysis of 100 studies that probed the relationship between body mass index and mortality — studies that found slightly overweight people have lower all-cause mortality than normal weight and underweight people — media around the globe trumpeted the news.
Many suggested that scientists had failed to understand something crucial about health, and questioned whether carrying extra weight might be healthier than being slim.
“When I read the article I was somewhat …

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TweetFebruary 25, 2013 Harvard School of Public Health
Boston, MA – A new poll released today shows a large gap between parents’ perceptions of their children’s weight and expert definitions. According to their parents, 15% of children are a little or very overweight, while national data suggest more than twice as many, or 32% of all children, are overweight or obese. The poll was conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
In addition, only 20% of children in households that participated in this poll had a parent …

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TweetFebruary 20, 2013, The New York Times, Michael Moss
“What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive. I talked to more than 300 people in or formerly employed by the processed-food industry, from scientists to marketers to C.E.O.’s. Some were willing whistle-blowers, while others spoke reluctantly when presented with some of the thousands of pages of secret memos that I obtained from …

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TweetJanuary 9, 2013, Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
After all those well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions have yielded to the force of habit, many of the nation’s 79 million obese adults will have a day of reckoning with their primary care physicians.
Lose weight and get active, the doctor will order, or risk developing diabetes. Then the MD will scribble a prescription.
For most patients, the prescribed treatment will not be a pill. It will be a 12-week program aimed at preventing Type 2 diabetes by getting obese adults to shed as little as …

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TweetDecember 15th, 2012, The Economist
IT IS LUNCHTIME at Eastside Elementary School in Clinton, Mississippi, the fattest state in the fattest country in the Western world. Uniformed lunch ladies stand at the ready. Nine-year-olds line up dutifully, trays in hand. Yes to chocolate milk, yes to breaded chicken sandwiches, yes to baked beans, yes to orange jelly, no to salad. Bowls of iceberg lettuce and tomatoes sit rim to rim, rejected. Regina Ducksworth, in charge of Clinton’s lunch menu, sighs. “Broccoli is very popular,” she says, reassuringly.
Persuading children to eat vegetables …

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December 13, The Washington Post by David Brown
The health of most of the planet’s population is rapidly coming to resemble that of the United States, where death in childhood is rare, too much food is a bigger problem than too little, and life is long and often darkened by disability.
High blood pressure is now the leading “risk factor” for disease around the world. Alcohol use is third. Low-back pain now causes more disability than childbirth complications or anemia.
“We are in transition to a world where disability is the dominant concern as …

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TweetSeptember 21, 2012, Harvard School of Public Health
Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health have found that greater consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is linked with a greater genetic susceptibility to high body mass index (BMI) and increased risk of obesity. The study reinforces the view that environmental and genetic factors may act together to shape obesity risk.
The study appears September 21, 2012 in an advance online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Our study for the first time provides reproducible evidence from three prospective cohorts to show genetic …

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TweetSeptember 30, 2012,  The Globe and Mail
Peter Nieman, a well-known pediatrician based at Calgary’s Pediatric Weight Clinic, says that more often than not, when he sits down with parents of children who are overweight or obese, they don’t even realize there’s a problem.
Then, Nieman shows them growth charts and explains the trajectory their children are on: continued weight gain resulting in a significantly increased risk for high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and many other serious conditions.
“They’re sometimes stunned to see how bad it is,” Nieman said.
Mounting …

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September 21, 2012, New York Times, Roni Caryn Rabin
Amid fervid criticism that New York City risks becoming a nanny state, city health officials this month banned the sale of supersize sugar-laden drinks in restaurants and movie theaters. Now scientists have handed the ban’s advocates a potent weapon: strong evidence that replacing sugared drinks with sugar-free substitutes or water really can slow weight gain in children.
Two-thirds of all American adults and one-third of children in the United States are overweight or obese. The contribution of sugary sodas and fruit drinks to …

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July 27, 2012 EmpowHer.com/Reuters Health
Fiber-enriched processed foods promise a healthier version of your favorite snacks, but do not expect them to keep your hunger at bay, a small study suggests.
In a short-term study of 22 women, researchers found no hunger-quashing effects of cho
colate bars containing four different “functional fibers,” such as inulin – aka “chicory root extract” – commonly found in fiber-enriched processed foods.
Overall, the women were just as hungry come lunch time as they were on a day when they ate a low-fiber bar for breakfast. And their food …