August 26, 2011, Will Aguila, HuffingtonPost
Do you know what a bento box is? It’s a Japanese lunch box that has many compartments. Different foods can be placed in each compartment so that they fit in neatly, do not overlap and never touch each other. I often think that, as a society, we want ideas about obesity and weight loss to fit neatly into a bento box; as if eating right and exercising are all that is needed to lose weight and keep it off.
The “Bento Box Attitude” thinks that if …

August 26, 2011, Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times
Weight loss is a complex thing. In fact, the old rule that cutting out or burning 500 calories a day will result in a steady, 1-pound-per-week weight loss doesn’t reflect real people, researchers say.
A new mathematical model from researchers at the National Institutes of Health instead shows that for the typical overweight adult, every 10-calorie-per-day reduction will result in the loss of about 1 pound over three years. Half that loss will occur in the first year. For example, cutting 250 calories a …

CNN, August 25, 2011
The problem of obesity is spreading around the world and poses serious health threats. The finding is part of a new special report on obesity, and how to combat it in the medical journal the Lancet. The editor, Dr. Richard Horton, calls obesity a pandemic, and said it is one of the “huge threats facing governments which are likely to derail all their best attempts to improve the health of their nations while at the same time controlling costs.”
Obesity Around the World
The first study says nearly 1.5 …

August 15, 2011, Carly Weeks, Globe and Mail
A new test that can predict which overweight and obese people face the greatest risk of death is much more accurate than relying on body mass index alone and should become the new standard of care, according to two large new studies.
The findings turn the prevailing notion that carrying extra weight automatically comes with heightened health risks on its head by suggesting not all overweight and obese people will benefit from a weight-loss regimen.
Instead, underlying health conditions, waist circumference and other factors should …

August 14, 2011, Weight loss surgery channel
Telling patients to use sheer willpower and make smarter food choices is not an effective means of treating obesity, according to a team of researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Rather, obesity counseling should focus on the brain’s tendency to fixate on high-sugar and high-fat foods, and address ways of avoiding environmental triggers.
“The brain is not really set up well to handle food in a way that would promote weight loss,” said clinical psychologist and obesity researcher Bradley Appelhans, Ph.D., lead author of …

August 13, 2011, AAP
SCIENTISTS have come up with a novel way of helping overweight people drop some kilos – retraining their taste buds.
Australian researchers have found that overweight and obese people who regularly tuck into fatty foods are less able to taste fat.
As fat promotes fullness, if a person is insensitive to fat their body will not send out signals telling them they are full and need to stop eating.
However the researchers found that switching to a low fat diet made people more sensitive to tasting fat, increasing their ability …

Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2011, Jeanine Stein
Obese men who want to improve their sexual health might have another solution besides their erectile dysfunction drugs. A study finds that overweight men who lost just 5% of their weight over eight weeks saw improvements in erectile dysfunction, sexual desire and urinary tract symptoms.
The small study focused on 31 obese men with a body mass index of 30 or greater and who had Type 2 diabetes. Some were put on a low-calorie diet that included liquid meal replacements and others were assigned …

July 31, News-Medical, Ananya Mandal
According to obesity expert and University of Melbourne professor of medicine Joseph Proietto the high failure rate of weight-loss programs could be explained by growing evidence that an obese person’s body is programmed to regain any weight that is lost. He said that authorities are wasting money on campaigns urging people to exercise and eat healthy food since obesity is “physiologically defended”.
He wrote in an opinion piece in The Medical Journal of Australia in which he said weight loss in obese people only led to changes …

July 28, 2011, Chicago Tribune, Monica Eng
America undoubtedly has a big obesity problem.
With two-thirds of all U.S. adults classified as obese or overweight, public health officials warn that much of the population is at dangerously high risk of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic and costly illnesses.
But who should be responsible for slimming down the nation?
Several recently released obesity action plans — including one for Illinois — suggest the government can do it through public policy measures ranging from soda taxes, healthier school lunches and mandatory school gym to calorie …

July 23, 2011, The New York Times, Mark Bittman OPINION
WHAT will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? The need is indisputable, since heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the Standard American Diet. (Yes, it’s SAD.)
Though experts increasingly recommend a diet high in plants and low in animal products and processed foods, ours is quite the opposite, and there’s little disagreement that changing it could improve our health and save tens of millions of lives.
And — not inconsequential during the current …