December 3, Michelle Higgins, NY Times
Should overweight passengers pay extra to fly?
That’s the debate stemming from a photo of an extremely large passenger that was posted on the aviation Web site Flightglobal.com. The photograph shows an obese passenger spilling out of his seat and into the aisle. According to the blog, Unusual Attitude, which is hosted by the site, the photograph was taken by an American Airlines flight attendant to show her manager what was happening on the aircraft.
Although it was posted on the blog last month, ABCNews.com, the New …

In a naturalistic study, we investigated the influence of gender, group size and gender composition of groups of eaters on food selected for lunch and dinner converted to total calories per meal of 469 individuals 198 groups in three large university cafeterias. In dyads, women observed eating with a male companion chose foods of significantly lower caloric value than those observed eating with another woman. Overall, group size was not a significant predictor of calories, but womens calories were negatively predicted by numbers of men in the group, while the …

ON a recent Thursday evening at the Bon Vivant Diner in Lower Manhattan, three round-bodied women sat at a booth, gabbing happily about warrior poses and downward-facing dogs, when they were interrupted by a heavyset woman in the adjacent booth.
“Excuse me, are you talking about a yoga class?” she asked.
The three women, Cynthia Ayers, Beth Garner and Bridget Clark, told her about their class, Buddha Body Yoga, and gave her a slip of paper with the Web address.
Looking at the paper skeptically, she asked: “So they have all levels, all …

Obese workers with diabetes are less productive than their normal-weight co-workers, says a U.S. study.
Researchers surveyed 7,338 working adults about missed work time, reduced work effectiveness and impairment of daily activities. The results showed that people who were obese and had type 2 diabetes lost 11 percent to 15 percent of work time (about 5.9 hours a week) because of health problems, compared with 9 percent of work time (about 3.6 hours a week) lost by normal-weight people.
The survey also found that obese people with type 2 diabetes reported impairment …

If the obesity epidemic needed a stimulus package, it would look much like the 24-fl.-oz. Oh Fudge! shake from Cold Stone Creamery, which sends a 1,920-calorie deposit of chocolate ice cream, milk, and fudge syrup into the bellies of those willing to pay $5.50 or more. To withdraw that from your daily calorie bank, you’d have to spend more than four hours on the step machine or nearly seven hours doing water aerobics. In other words, it’s Food Porn. The gory details are published in the May issue of Nutrition Action Healthletter, …

Chains are resorting to giveaways or less-than-$1 menu items. And they’re getting smarter about engineering lower-priced but still-profitable items, though some say the cheaper food tastes that way.

Before the recession, Andrew Puzder, who heads the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s burger chains, liked to joke about how sharp-priced competitors were “giving food away.”
As the recession deepened and the number of 79-cent taco and 99-cent hamburger offers exploded, Puzder realized it was “no longer a joke; they are giving food away.”

Literally.

On Monday, KFC gave away a free piece of its new grilled chicken just …

Getting back to the relatively slim, trim days of the 1970s would help to tackle climate change, researchers say.
The rising numbers of people who are overweight and obese in the UK means the nation uses 19% more food than 40 years ago, a study suggests.
That could equate to an extra 60 mega tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, the team calculated.
Transport costs of a fatter population were also included in the International Journal of Epidemiology study.
Dr Phil Edwards, study leader and researcher at the London School of Hygiene and …

Starting today, United Airlines may bump severely overweight passengers from sold-out flights.
Passengers who are too large to fit comfortably in single coach seat will be required to buy a second ticket or upgrade to business class, where seats are larger, if United’s flight attendants can’t find two open seats for them.

Chicago-based United says that it decided to adopt the tougher policy receiving more than 700 complaints last year from passengers “who did not have a comfortable flight because the person next to them infringed on their seat,” said United spokeswoman …