The mental stress of computer work triggers changes in blood sugar and hormone levels that trick the brain into thinking it has worked off lots of calories that need to be replaced. Watching television has the same effect, experts at the International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm have said.Office workers who want to keep trim should take regular screen breaks, and even consider typing while standing up, Jean-Philippe Chaput, a researcher from the University of Copenhagen, has suggested.

Chaput started the research after noticing how one regularly snacked on chocolate biscuits when doing computer work.He asked one group of female students to condense some text into an on-screen summary and another group to simply relax for 45 minutes.

Those doing the computer-based task burnt just three more calories than the others, but ate much more food when given access to a buffet afterwards. In fact, they took in an extra 230 calories – the equivalent of a two-fingered Kit Kat.”Working on your computer is sedentary and doing nothing increases your weight. But use of them also increases your appetite as well so there is a double whammy in effect,”

Chaput was quoted as saying by Daily Mail. Chaput will now look at whether computer games, in which users mime a sport, also lead people to eat more.

via Excess computer work creates craving for sweets – Trends News – IBNLive.

Obese women have four times as many unplanned pregnancies as healthy-weight women despite having less sex, and obese men are more likely to have sexual diseases despite fewer partners, scientists said on Wednesday.

In a study showing how obesity can harm sexual health, French and British researchers also found that obese women are less likely to ask for contraceptive advice or use the pill, and obese men are more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction.

With obesity epidemics overwhelming many wealthy nations and threatening increasing numbers of developing countries, experts said the public health impact of the findings was important.

In the United States, for example, two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese.

“In public health terms, the study lends a new slant to a familiar message: that obesity can harm not only health and longevity, but your sex life,” Sandy Goldbeck-Wood, a specialist in psychosexual medicine at Britains Ipswich Hospital, wrote in an editorial on the study in the British Medical Journal BMJ.

The research, led by Professor Nathalie Bajos of Frances National Institute for Health and Medical Research INSERM, is the first major study to investigate the impact of being overweight or obese on sexual activity and other factors such as sexual satisfaction, unintended pregnancy and abortion.

The authors surveyed the sexual behavior of 12,364 men and women aged between 18 and 69 years in France in 2006. Around half of them were normal weight, with a body mass index BMI of 18.5 to 25, around 2,500 of them were overweight, with a BMI of 25 to 30, and around 750 of them were obese, with a BMI over 30.

Compared to normal weight men, obese men were 70 percent less likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the past year and two and half times more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction. Obese men under 30 years old were far more likely to have had a sexually transmitted disease.

Sexual dysfunction was not linked to BMI in women, but obese women under 30 years old were less likely than women of normal weight to seek contraceptive advice or use oral contraceptives and were also more likely to report an unplanned pregnancy.

The study also found that obese women were five times as likely to have met their partner on the internet, more likely to have an obese partner, and less likely to view sex as important for personal life balance.

Bajos said social pressure, low self-esteem and concerns about body image may help explain these findings.

Goldbeck-Wood said there was evidence that doctors find it difficult to discuss sex and weight issues with patients, but she said they must be more prepared to do so: “We need to understand more about how obese people feel about their sex lives, and what drives the observed behaviors and attitudes.”

via Obese have worse sexual health despite less sex | Reuters.

Nutrition Action Healthletter Exposes 9 Caloric Heavyweights

May 24, 2010

WASHINGTON—Would you top a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza with six Taco Bell Crunchy beef Tacos? And then eat the whole thing? Well, pass the Pepto-Bismol, please: The nutrition and food safety watchdogs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest today conferred its Xtreme Eating awards on nine items from seven American restaurant chains.

“One might think that chains like Outback Steakhouse and The Cheesecake Factory might want to lighten up their meals now that calories will be required on their menus, courtesy of the health care reform law signed in March,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “But these chains don’t promote moderation. They practice caloric extremism, and they’re helping make modern-day Americans become the most obese people ever to walk the Earth.”

Photo Credit: Melissa Pryputniewicz
The Outbeak Steakhouse New Zealand Rack of Lamb plus the
sides has 1,820 calories, 80 grams of saturated fat, and 2,600
milligrams of sodium.

Most people wouldn’t think to order two orders of deep-fried steak and eggs for breakfast at a casual chain like Bob Evans. But if you order Bob Evans’ Cinnamon Cream Stacked & Stuffed Hotcakes, you’ll be getting 1,380 calories and 34 grams of bad fat—about what you’d get in two country-fried steaks and four eggs. But the hotcakes are worse because seven grams of their bad fat comes from trans fat—more than one should get in three and a half days. Syrup adds another 200 calories for every four-tablespoon serving.

Pancakes, which are usually lightly fried white flour topped with sugary syrup, have never been a healthy breakfast. But Bob stuffs his hotcakes with cinnamon chips made of sugar and fat; adds a layer of cream-cheese-flavored filling; and tops them with sugary “cream” sauce, whipped topping, and powdered sugar. And that makes the item one of CSPI’s top Xtreme Eating dishonorees for 2010.

To put these numbers into context, keep in mind that the average American should consume about 2,000 calories per day, and consume no more than 20 grams of saturated fat. Others examples of Xtreme Eating include:

• California Pizza Kitchen Tostada Pizza with Grilled Steak. With 1,680 calories,1½ day’s worth (32 grams) of saturated fat, and more than 2 day’s worth (3,300 mg) of sodium ordering the single-serve pizza is like eating a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza topped with six Taco Bell Crunchy beef Tacos.
• Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger. At McDonald’s, most people probably wouldn’t opt for a second Quarter Pounder (410 calories each). But at one of the trendy Five Guys’ 550 outlets, one Bacon Cheeseburger sans toppings has 920 calories and a day-and-a half’s worth (30 grams) of saturated fat. A large order of French fries at Five Guys has 1,460 calories—about triple the calories of a large order of fries at McDonald’s. (Famous Five Guys patrons pleasetake note.)
• P.F. Chang’s Double Pan-Fried Noodles Combo. You could eat 10 egg Rolls and not top the 1,820 calories in this dish. “They fry these noodles to make them hard and crunchy, while you end up soft and flabby,” says CSPI nutrition director Bonnie Liebman. If this noodle dish does indeed have the 7,690 milligrams of sodium to which the chain confesses, that would be about three teaspoons of salt—a five-day supply.
• The Cheesecake Factory Pasta Carbonara with Chicken. When CSPI first dubbed fettuccine Alfredo a “heart attack on a plate,” it was because CSPI’s lab tests found it had 1,500 calories and 48 grams of saturated fat. But, according to the company, this dish—with four cups of white-flour pasta, smoked bacon, chicken, and Parmesan cream and butter sauce—has 2,500 calories and more saturated fat (85 grams) than one should consume in four days. It’s like eating the chain’s onion-ring-topped Grilled Rib-Eye Steak with French Fries, and a slice of Tiramisu Cheesecake.
• The Cheesecake Factory Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake. A tower of any food is rarely a good idea. This six-inch-long, three-quarter-pound slab of cake has 1,670 calories and two-and-a-half days’ worth (48 grams) of artery-clogging saturated fat. Feel like eating 14 Hostess Ho Hos for dessert?

The full list of the 2010 Xtreme Eating Awards is published in the June issue of Nutrition Action Healthletter.

“I wouldn’t accuse California Pizza Kitchen or P.F. Chang’s of being a threat to national security, but with a quarter of young Americans too heavy to join the military, these and other chains ought to get the extremes off their menus,” said Liebman. “At a minimum, they should disclose calories on menus now, even before federal regulations make it mandatory.”

Packaged-food manufacturers recently made a commitment to slash a trillion calories from the foods they produce by 2012. But the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation includes only one restaurant company, Darden, the parent company of Olive Garden and Red Lobster. And none of the companies involved in the initiative are revealing any details on how calorie reductions will be achieved. CSPI noted that, while a trillion calories sounds like a lot, it represents only a drop in the bucket of the more than 350 trillion calories that Americans consume every year.

“For all the industry’s rhetoric about providing consumers with ‘choice,’ the choices at restaurants mostly range from bad to terrible,” Jacobson said. “The healthy choices are largely afterthoughts and Xtreme Eating reigns supreme. If chain restaurants want to practice corporate responsibility, they should substitute fruits, vegetables, and whole grains for white flour, sugar, salt, and fat.”

The health-reform law enacted in March gives the Food and Drug Administration a year to propose a regulation specifying how restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets should disclose calories on menus and menu boards. The law will also require chains to make information about saturated fat, carbohydrates, sodium, and other nutrients available to diners upon request.

And the Envelope, Please: The 2010 Xtreme Eating Awards Go To… ~ Newsroom ~ News from CSPI ~ Center for Science in the Public Interest.

One is a ruling minority of the healthy few who rely on vegetable gardens, personal trainers and spa getaways to stay fit. The other is the majority of Americans, who are overweight or obese, many of whom risk their own form of assisted living — XXXL clothes, mobility scooters and diabetes treatments that can tip over $50,000 a year.

“One Nation, Overweight” is a CNBC documentary on Tuesday that provides a chilling portrait of a health epidemic that endangers all Americans — without being overly alarmist or too sanguine. And while that doesn’t sound like a big deal, this program stands out in a landscape cluttered with mixed messages and grossly distorted images of reality.

Television used to ignore obesity; now it wallows in it. But the effort to portray the problem — and the solutions — mirrors the way most Americans eat: the most basic facts are larded with sugary entertainment and creamy dollops of instant gratification.

Weight-loss reality shows like “The Biggest Loser” turn obesity into a contest, painting the solitary, often costly struggle against obesity as an exhilarating and financially rewarding team sport. Even do-good missions feed the appetite of viewers accustomed to supersize entertainment. The British chef Jamie Oliver tried to tame the eating habits of an entire town in West Virginia, called the fattest place in America, for his reality show, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.” Not surprisingly, French fries won.

Meanwhile, series like “Drop Dead Diva” and “Glee,” which recently devoted an episode to a character’s battle with her weight, try to preach self-acceptance by showcasing plus-size heroines who learn to value their physiques. Mostly, they present an unrealistic image of a world populated by whippet-thin women, each of whom has one large friend.

“One Nation, Overweight” isn’t a treat, but it’s rich in salutary warnings. It begins at the Cleveland Clinic, one of the top destinations for growing numbers of patients — some weighing 500 and 600 pounds — who want to have their stomachs stapled. (There were 220,000 such procedures done in 2009, according to CNBC.) The corridors of the bariatric ward, filled with hugely fat people who can barely walk, provide the kind of flesh-and-blood look into the future that was the apocalyptic message of the animated movie “Wall-E.”

And that future may not be so far away. Kenneth E. Thorpe, a health economist at Emory University, discusses a study he published that warns that if current trends continue, the cost of treating weight-related illnesses will double to $344 billion a year by 2018.

The CNBC correspondent Scott Wapner interviews experts who describe obesity as a disease, but the obese people he speaks to rarely blame their size on genetic predisposition or other extenuating circumstances.

“I did to this myself,” says Henry Butler, 62, who was 330 pounds when he went to the Cleveland Clinic. “Who said I had to eat all that?”

School cafeterias are part of the problem, and CNBC visits a school in Virginia where snack carts sell sticky buns, candy bars and chips three times a day. The principal explains that the profits go to help after-school sports programs, a vicious — and viscous — cycle.

There are schools and workplaces that are trying to fight back, including the owner of a car dealership who pays for his overweight employees to join a $2,500 weight-loss program — he says it saves him tens of thousands of dollars in health costs. An inventor demonstrates his answer to a sedentary work force: a machine that allows an employee to work at a computer terminal while walking on a slow-moving treadmill.

Over all, CNBC provides a broad, sensible look at a problem that is not new, but is increasingly dire. There are a few journalistic lapses, however.

The film spends quite a bit of time on a promising weight-loss drug, Qnexa, that is awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration. It helps suppress appetite and has had better results than similar drugs in clinical trials, according to the documentary.

Mr. Wapner interviews Leland F. Wilson, the chief executive of Vivus, the maker of Qnexa, who is predictably bullish. So is the only research scientist shown on camera, Dr. Michelle Look, a sports medicine specialist who is a lead clinical trial investigator on Qnexa and a paid consultant to Vivus.

A deputy director of the F.D.A. is interviewed but doesn’t say much about Qnexa, except to explain that his agency is under pressure from advocacy groups to speed up approval of anti-obesity drugs.

Particularly because so many viewers are overweight and desperate for a medical breakthrough on obesity, CNBC should have also interviewed an independent scientist who could have added a grain of salt to Mr. Wapner’s boosterish report.

And credibility, once shaken, is hard to restore. Jim Trudeau, a small-business owner from Madison, Wis., who attended a weight-loss program at the Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge in Ivins, Utah, lost 200 pounds, but has another 200 or so to lose, since he started at 600. Mr. Trudeau is an articulate and sympathetic figure, but it’s hard not to wonder if he was picked for his personality, or because “The Biggest Loser” is on NBC, a sister network to CNBC.

“One Nation, Overweight” takes a serious look at a serious problem, and it would be better if it showed more discipline in curbing its own weaknesses.

via The TV Watch – CNBC Explores a Big Nation of Big People – NYTimes.com.

The Liverpool Schools Parliament has asked for the description “unhealthy weight” to be used instead.

The 90 nine to 11-year-olds believe that obesity is offensive and may de-motivate overweight children.

A council spokesman said that the proposal would be considered after it invited ideas for its Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP).

It could be adopted as part of official strategies to improve children’s lives in the city over the next two years.

“We can’t change government terminology or clinicians’ terminology, but we can look at changing how we communicate weight issues in council reports and in our communications with children,” said the spokesman.

The proposal would be considered over the next two months, he said.

The Liverpool Schools Parliament represents the views of schoolchildren across the city and is consulted by the city council on youth issues.

via BBC News – Liverpool City Council considers ‘obesity’ word ban.

NICE (Jan. 21) — Air France this week was embroiled in a public relations debacle that proved what a delicate issue obesity is becoming even for the once proudly svelte French. 

The airline was forced to deny reports that it would penalize overweight passengers by making them buy two seats after a barrage of stories accusing the airline of treating fat people unfairly.

Dozens of newspapers quoted an Air France spokeswoman saying that as of April 1, passengers who appear too heavy would be obliged to buy a second seat at a 25 percent discount. Some French organizations representing obese people accused the airline of discrimination.

But on Thursday the airline released a statement explaining that the only departure from a policy in place since 2005 was that overweight passengers could get a full refund for their purchase of a second seat if their flight turns out not to be full.

The airline says it does not force heavier passengers to buy a second ticket but are “suggesting” the option for their own comfort.

Air France spokesman Nicolas Petteau was clearly uncomfortable talking Friday about what has turned into a PR nightmare for the venerable airline, long a proud symbol of France.

In appearing to join the ranks of some American airlines — such as United Airlines and Southwest — which sometimes require overweight passengers to buy a second seat, Air France has dealt another blow to the prized image of French people as thin and elegant, in contrast to their supposedly obese, junk-food-eating American cousins.

In fact, the changes at Air France are believed to stem from the $11,000 it was forced to pay a 352-pound Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Jauffret, who sued the airline after saying he was humiliated by having his stomach measured in public as he tried to board a flight from New Delhi to Paris in 2005.

That is not the only indication that the airline’s adjustment to a more corpulent passenger base has been fraught with difficulty.

“It is a situation we tend to encounter every day now,” Petteau said. “It can be very awkward. It’s a much bigger story than what is happening at Air France. We wanted to start offering a solution.”

It’s a bigger story, literally. The most recent World Health Organization figures show that 16.9 percent of French adults meet its definition of obesity, compared to 35.1 percent of Americans. But Anne-Sophie Joly, president of the National Collective of Associations for the Obese (CNAO) in France, said obesity in France is increasing at about 6 percent annually among adults and 17 percent among children. At that rate, she says, the French could be as fat as Americans in 2020.

But is Air France’s plan a good “solution,” as Petteau says, or just the start of the further oppression of fat people in France?

“This is nothing but pure discrimination,” Joly said. ” It’s a bad idea, and they saw what a negative reaction they got this week. This is just the first step, and then in two months we’ll be paying for two tickets.”

Nadine Morano, the secretary of state for family, also disapproved of the new Air France plan when she heard the initial media reports, calling it “fairly shocking.”

Even Lesleigh Owen, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-based National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, weighed in. “Given all I’ve heard about personal and human rights in France,” she said, “I’m surprised and disappointed that Air France has begun to adopt some American airlines’ discriminatory policies.”

In November, Joly told Le Monde that a “medical catastrophe” is looming in once-skinny France because the country is ill-equipped for the new corpulence. She cited everything from too-small hospital operating tables to a lack of sexy undergarments for larger women.

“The French are getting fatter every day,” said Andi Ipaktchi, an American illustrator who has lived in Paris for 20 years. “The other day I saw a group of really chunky teen-age girls, and of course I thought they were American. I got closer and it was clear they were all French.”

Ipaktchi said she’s seen a huge difference since she arrived in Paris.

“Mealtimes used to be very precise,” she said. “And lunch was sacred. Everyone went home for a full meal at lunch. Now you see people walking down the street eating a sandwich. That was unheard of. And everyone has soft drinks. It used to be if you ordered a Coke with your steak, the waiter would practically yell at you. Now it’s acceptable.”

Despite the contention of some popular diet books, French women do get fat, Ipaktchi added.

“The drugstores here are filled with products to help you lose weight,” she said. “French woman are just as obsessed as American women with being thin. But it doesn’t come as naturally to them as everyone thinks. Diet pills are everywhere.”

via Air France Frets Over How to Seat the Obese – AOL News.

weight loss supplements

Sale of drugs that do NOT (I repeat do NOT) make you thinner is expected to grow 11.5% per year.

Kathlyn Stone, January 24, 2010

They were right about the growth in vaccine sales. Now industry analysts predict anti-obesity drugs will be the next big success story in the pharmaceutical industry.

GlobalData’s newest report  predicts the global market for anti-obesity drugs – now valued at $1.4 billion – will grow 11.7 percent each year over the next seven to reach $3.1 billion by 2016.

Fueling the industry’s interest is the alarming obesity epidemic and a persistent public expectation that pharmaceutical companies will  eventually develop a pill that is safer, shows greater results, and has fewer negative side effects than drugs currently on the market.

By 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese, according to projections from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The United States is currently the biggest single market for weight loss drugs, with around 68 percent of the population either overweight or obese, followed by the UK and other European countries. However, China, Russia, India and Brazil could soon begin to eclipse Western countries in terms of its obese populations. For example, China’s obesity and overweight levels are predicted to reach 665 to 670 million in 2015.

Yet, there are few options for the growing numbers that would consider pharmaceuticals to help shed pounds.

Two prescription anti-obesity drugs dominate the market: Roche’s Xenical (orlistat), a lipase inhibitor, and Abbott’s Meridia (sibutramine hydrochloride), an appetite suppressant.

Together they represent two-thirds of the $1.4 billion prescription anti-obesity market in terms of revenues. Generics and off-label drugs represent the other third. (Xenical lost its patent in December 2009 so will soon lose share to cheaper generics.)

Sibutramine, the key ingredient of Xenical, is the latest of a long line of anti-obesity drugs to be approved and later taken off the market. While still approved for sale in the United States, sibutramine has just been banned in the UK and France where health agencies concluded that its risks outweigh its benefits.

A third class of drugs promotes weight-loss by speeding up metabolism but it is only effective on a short-term basis.

via Flesh and Stone – Anti-obesity drug market to reach $3.1 billion by 2016.

Brian Merchant, Treehugger

But now, lets look at the quality of the soda fountains–another staple of the fast food experience. A recent study has revealed that a full 48% of soda fountains at fast food restaurants contain coliform bacteria–a bacteria that grows in feces. Oh, and 11% contained E. Coli, too.

The study was done by a team of microbiologists at Hollins University, and the findings were just published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology.

From the abstract of the scientists report:

Coliform bacteria was detected in 48% of the beverages and 20% had a heterotrophic plate count greater than 500 cfu/ml. [...] More than 11% of the beverages analyzed contained Escherichia coli [E. Coli] and over 17% contained Chryseobacterium meningosepticum. Other opportunistic pathogenic microorganisms isolated from the beverages included species of Klebsiella, Staphylococcus, Stenotrophomonas, Candida, and Serratia. Most of the identified bacteria showed resistance to one or more of the 11 antibiotics tested.

Thats right–not only do soda fountains contain bacteria that originated in poop and potentially dangerous amounts of E. Coli, but theyve become resistant to antibiotics as well. Fantastic.

Journalist Tom Lawskawy, who broke news of the study, points out, however, that the researchers say theres only been one certified outbreak over in the last ten years. But he also notes that theres an “awful lot of gastric distress that goes unreported.” Which is undeniably true–how many times can you remember having a meal at a fast food restaurant and inexplicably not feeling so hot afterward? Perhaps our friend the coliform bacteria–you know, the one that grows in feces and that you have something like a 50% chance of ingesting if you drink from fast food soda fountains–has played a part.

via 48% of Fast Food Soda Fountains Contain Bacteria that Grew in Feces : TreeHugger.

Amelia Hill, January 3, 2010, the Observer

For each one per cent increase in the prevalence of obese students aged 16 to 18 years, the odds of a student at 14 to 16 years old attending that school also being overweight increased significantly.

“It was the one risk factor that held true across every school we looked at,” said Dr Scott Leatherdale, the chair of research at Cancer Care Ontario and lead investigator with the School Health Action, Planning and Evaluation System.

“Schools that had a large number of obese younger students were disproportionately likely also to have a high percentage of overweight older students. The association was completely consistent.”

Leatherdale is the first expert to study the link between the weight issues of older and younger children attending the same schools. In a paper to be published next week in the Journal of Youth Adolescence, he will suggest a range of reasons for the correlation.

“It could be that younger students look up to older students, and so emulate their sedentary behaviour and bad eating habits and do not judge the older children’s body shape,” he said. “Or it could be that the school doesn’t encourage enough physical activity among its students, and the older students’ weight issues are an indication of that.”

Excessive weight gain among young people is a specific cause for concern among experts: not only is obesity during childhood and adolescence associated with hypertension and high cholestrerol, but it is also linked to behavioural, emotional, and educational problems, cardiovascular disease and increased risk of some cancers.

Leatherdale, who examined almost 25,500 children across 76 schools, is calling for his findings to be used to target future youth obesity prevention initiatives.

“Schools are an important social environment for youth given that most students will spend upwards of 25 hours each week in the school throughout the school year,” he said.

“Mine is the first research to look at the influence of school’s social environments on weight, but it is consistent with previous research that has shown the smoking habits of older students have a significant impact on the uptake of smoking among younger students. My research should be used to target the schools that are putting students at the greatest risk.”

Steve Fuller, Professor of Sociology at Warwick University, agrees that schools can create an environment that encourages obesity.

“Obesity is one phenomenon that medical sociologists have nominated as an ‘epidemic’ that is transmitted by copying the behaviour of peers,” he said. “Certain connections between overeating and social activities become contagious. Young people gather together in more stationary modes than in the past: in front of computers and video games rather than sports.

“The reason it’s called an ‘epidemic’ is because the pattern is reinforced by regular contact, so that if one is not in regular contact with the pattern, one doesn’t spontaneously do it The idea is that you overcome obesity by breaking up the networks where it’s transmitted.”

Dr Amelia Lake, of the Human Nutrition Research Centre at Newcastle University, agreed. “This is a very interesting piece of research indeed,” she said. “It is reinforced by work I have done on how weight gain in adults is associated with weight gain in their friends, siblings and spouse.

“Social networks may influence obesity through changing social norms about the acceptability of increased weight and by influencing their behaviours such as eating habits,” she added.

But Professor Jack Winkler, the director of the Nutrition Policy Unit at London Metropolitan University, said the research was a distraction from the real issue.

“The issue of obesity has become too urgent for this sort of research,” he said. “More than 60% of adults are overweight. The epidemic is so widespread that we need to be investigating how to intervene to stop and prevent it, not waste our time studying what we know about who is obese.”

via Younger pupils mimic habits of obese children in older classes | Education | The Observer .