January 17, 2012, Los Angeles Times, Shari Roan
After a 30-year, record-shattering rise, U.S. obesity rates appear to be stabilizing.New statistics cited in two papers report only a slight uptick since 2005 — leaving public health experts tentatively optimistic that they may be gaining some ground in their efforts to slim down the nation.Many obesity specialists say the new data, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are a sign that efforts to address the obesity problem — such as placing nutritional information on food packaging and revising school lunch menus — are …

December 4, 2011, The Star Online, By Dr TEE E SIONG
All stakeholders must collaborate in the prevention of obesity.
THE World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted that obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with at least 2.6 million people dying each year as a result of being overweight or obese.
Once considered a problem only in high-income countries, the incidence of overweight and obesity are now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries. It is an ever increasing problem, and worldwide, obesity has more than doubled since 1980.
In 2008, it was …

Associated Press/The Washington Post, November 29, 2011
The case of an 8-year-old third-grader weighing more than 200 pounds has renewed a debate on whether parents should lose custody if a child is severely obese.
Roughly 2 million U.S. children are extremely obese — weighing significantly more than what’s considered healthy.
A Cleveland Heights boy was taken from his family and was placed in foster care in October after county case workers said his mother wasn’t doing enough to control his weight. The boy, at his weight, is considered at risk for developing such …

October 26, New York Times, Gina Kolata
For years, studies of obesity have found that soon after fat people lost weight, their metabolism slowed and they experienced hormonal changes that increased their appetites. Scientists hypothesized that these biological changes could explain why most obese dieters quickly gained back much of what they had so painfully lost.
But now a group of Australian researchers have taken those investigations a step further to see if the changes persist over a longer time frame. They recruited healthy people who were either overweight or obese and …

September 12, 2011, New York Times, Jane E. Brody
If you have gained a lot of unwanted pounds at any time during the last 30-odd years, you may be relieved to know that you are probably not to blame. At least not entirely.
Many environmental forces, from economic interests of the food and beverage industries to the way our cities and towns are built, have conspired to subvert the body’s natural ability to match calories in with calories out.
And the solution to the nation’s most pressing health problem — the ever-rising epidemic …

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 …

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 …

Reuters, Bill Berkrot, Novemner 23, 2010
More than half of Americans will have diabetes or be prediabetic by 2020 at a cost to the U.S. health care system of $3.35 trillion if current trends go on unabated, according to analysis of a new report released on Tuesday by health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc.
Diabetes and prediabetes will account for an estimated 10 percent of total health care spending by the end of the decade at an annual cost of almost $500 billion — up from an estimated $194 billion this year, according …

The Times of India, November 23, 2010
Nearly 25 per cent of overweight and 16 percent of normal weight women of reproductive-age misperceive their body weight, says a new study.
The research from University of Texas Medical Branch suggests that this misperception affects women’s weight-related behaviours making many vulnerable to cardiovascular and other obesity-related diseases.
The researchers also found that overweight women who perceive themselves as normal weight were significantly less likely to report weight-related behaviours, such as dieting.
“As obesity numbers climb, many women identify overweight as normal, not based on the scale …

Reuters, Lynne Peeples, November 19, 2010
The obesity epidemic has taken hold in many developing countries, new research finds, with the burden weighing almost entirely on the nations’ wealthy.
Meanwhile, poor people within the same borders still can’t put on enough pounds.
The findings contrast the pattern in developed nations, such as the U.S., where obesity tends to have a heavier impact on the poor.
“There’s a lot of discussion on how the problems of obesity and overweight are now spreading to poor and developing countries,” lead researcher SV Subramanian of the Harvard School …