July 20, 2011, Boston Globe, Kay Lazar
Posted calorie counts in chain restaurants are often inaccurate, and weight-conscious consumers who select soups and salads are especially likely to be served heftier dishes than advertised, according to a new study from Boston researchers.
Their analysis of a wide assortment of items from 42 national fast-food and sit-down restaurant chains found that nearly 1 in 5 samples, when measured in a laboratory, were at least 100 calories over the amounts listed on the restaurants’ websites.
The team also identified many items that contained fewer calories …

July 19, 2011, TIME, Jeffrey Kluger
Want to lose weight? How about trying to bore yourself thin? According to a study that will  be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, monotony at mealtime might be a clever — if  unexciting — way to reduce calorie consumption.
Human beings come pre-loaded with a sort of habituation threshold and it shows itself in a lot of ways. Hear the same pop song too often and you eventually want to fling the CD out the window. See the same …

July 19, 2011, CBS News
Baby boomers fear dying from cancer, or losing their memory from Alzheimer’s as they age. What they should be worrying about is their growing waist lines, as the generation’s obesity problem can cause serious health risks and take a toll on the U.S. healthcare system in the not-so-distant future.
A new Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll found baby boomers are more obese than past generations, which can make for some unpleasant and unhealthy senior years.
So much for 60 being “the new 50.”
Part of the problem is a sedentary lifestyle. …

July 18, 2011, China Realtime Report
Obesity rates in China have surged over the years, leading some to think China is starting to look a lot more like the U.S these days.
A deeper look says otherwise.
According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Health Behavior, the difference between obese people in China and those in the U.S. is striking, suggesting that assumptions about obesity patterns in the West can’t be applied to China’s increasingly overweight population.
Researchers of the study, “Correlates of Overweight Status in Chinese Youth: an East-West …

July 17, 2011, Los Angeles Times, Daniele Hernandez
Better access to supermarkets — long touted as a way to curb obesity in low-income neighborhoods — doesn’t improve people’s diets, according to new research. The study, which tracked thousands of people in several large cities for 15 years, found that people didn’t eat more fruits and vegetables when they had supermarkets available in their neighborhoods.
Instead, income — and proximity to fast-food restaurants — were the strongest factors in food choice.
The results throw some cold water on the idea that lack of access …

July 15, 2011, Boston Globe, Alex Beam
“Hey, fatty! Pull that doughnut out of your pie hole! You look like a pig, and you are costing me, and every other taxpayer, billions of dollars in unnecessary health care each year!’’
How do you like my new public service ad campaign, designed to stigmatize the overweight and the obese in the same way smokers have been made to feel the knout of social opprobrium for the past quarter-century?
I got the idea when I heard professor Daniel Callahan, the retired cofounder of the Hastings …

July, 5, 2011, Fast Company, Morgan Clendaniel
If you’re willing to put aside the cancer and emphysema and be a smoker, your last excuse might have just gone up in smoke. Smokers often claim that their habit serves as an appetite suppressant. They may be risking disease later in life, but at least they’re preventing obesity today. But that contention has just been disproved.
For the most part, smokers are actually more overweight than non-smokers.
The study looked at 6,000 smokers and non-smokers, comparing their body-mass index (BMI, a ratio of height to …

June 29, 2011, Chicago Tribune, Anne Stein
In 1960, Americans averaged 81/2 hours of sleep a night, and our obesity rate was around 12 percent. Today we’re averaging 6 1/2 to seven hours, and our obesity rate has climbed to around 30 percent. Coincidence?
No, say sleep experts. They point out study after study showing that a lack of good quality sleep—seven to nine hours of uninterrupted slumber—is making us fat. And it’s not just overworked adults who are gaining weight. Long-term studies are finding that sleep-deprived children also are piling on the pounds.
“You’re …

June 29, 2011, Reuters, Eric Schultz
A one-year weight loss program based on lifestyle changes can help obese people shed almost as many pounds as surgery, German researchers say.
In a study published in the International Journal of Obesity, they found women who stuck with the program lost 43 pounds, while men trimmed their weight by 57 pounds.
But more than 40 percent quit before the year was up. And even among completers, three-quarters of the weight they’d lost had crept back after three years.
“Weight regain remains the Achilles’ heel of all weight …

June 28,. 2011, ABC News, Katie Moisse
Americans eat roughly 570 calories more per day than they did in the 1970s, according to a new study. While supersize portions are partly to blame, steady snacking is the bigger culprit.
“We’re a generation of constant eaters,” said Barry Popkin, distinguished professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Popkin used surveys to probe the American diet since 1977. Americans began eating more in the ’80s and ’90s, but in recent years, they’ve begun eating and drinking more often — …