BBC News, February 13, 2010
The “tipping point” that sets children on the way to a lifetime of obesity often occurs before the age of two, say US researchers. A study of more than 100 obese children and teenagers found more than half were overweight by 24 months and 90% were overweight by the age of five.
A quarter were overweight before they were five months old, the researchers reported in Clinical Pediatrics. In the UK, around 27% of children are now overweight. The children in the study – who had an average age of …

BBC News, February 15, 2010
Young children who are regularly looked after by their grandparents have an increased risk of being overweight, an extensive British study has suggested.
Analysis of 12,000 three-year olds suggested the risk was 34% higher if grandparents cared for them full time. Children who went to nursery or had a childminder had no increased risk of weight problems, the International Journal of Obesity reported.
Nearly a quarter of preschool children in the UK are overweight or obese. The researchers said very little research had been done on the influence of childcare …

Telegraph, February 17, 2010
Cases of devastating health conditions like heart disease, diabetes and stroke will increase with the nation’s waistlines, it warns.
The latest study is an update of the Government-commissioned Foresight report, released in 2007, and reveals no basis for hope that the obesity crisis is easing.
Although recent figures have suggested that childhood obesity may be levelling off, for adults the picture is “less optimistic”, the report’s authors warn.
Within 10 years, 81 per cent of men aged between 20 and 65, will be either overweight or obese, and 41 per …

Reuters, February 9, 2010
Alarmed that nearly a third of U.S. children are obese or overweight — and likely to stay that way all their lives — President Barack Obama launched an initiative on Tuesday to roll back the numbers and put his wife in charge of promoting it.
“I have set a goal to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight,” Obama said in signing the order at the White House.
He assigned his cabinet officers to meet …

Los Angeles Times, Marni Jameson, February 1, 2010
Slim society’s tolerance is wearing thin.
As more people over the last decade have tipped the scales toward obesity, normal weight folks have signed up for employee wellness programs that offer them lower premiums and other financial perks as a reward for their healthy weight — and that indirectly penalize heavier workers. They’ve crafted policies, most unsuccessful, to compel individuals to lose weight. They’ve become vocal, sometimes vehemently so, in their support for “sin taxes” on junk food and soda. And they’ve increasingly attacked, …

Katherine Skiba, Chicago Tribune, January 19, 2010
WASHINGTON—First lady Michelle Obama, who is ratcheting up her campaign against childhood obesity, will ask the country’s mayors Wednesday to join her fight to get kids fit.
Obama, who said last week that she hopes to make combating childhood obesity her legacy, will address the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which is holding meetings here through Friday.
The address comes before the launch of a major policy initiative, her aides said.
About 220 mayors, including Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, are expected to attend, said conference spokeswoman Elena Temple.
Obama …

Sarah Klein, Health.com, December 3, 2009
Although fewer people are smoking — and therefore less likely to die from cigarette-related causes — the obesity epidemic may negate any gains in life span, according to a new study.
By 2020, the typical 18-year-old will gain 0.31 years due to the drop in smoking rates (above and beyond life span increases caused by other factors). But the increase in obesity rates during the same period will reduce life expectancy by 1.02 years, the researchers say.
During the next 10 years, in other words, we’ll …

September 1, 2009, Nanci Hellmich, USA Today
The healthy choice should be the easy choice, says family physician Eduardo Sanchez.
To make it easier for children to eat healthfully and move more, local governments in towns and cities across the country need to help create a better environment, a new report says.

Children and their families should have access to grocery stores that offer plenty of healthful food such as fruits and vegetables, and schools shouldn’t be surrounded by fast-food restaurants. Children should be able to ride their bikes or walk safely to …

New York State has shelved the idea of a tax on sugary sodas and juice drinks. But New York City’s public health officials opened a new front in their struggle against high-calorie beverages on Monday, unveiling an ad campaign that depicts globs of human fat gushing from a soda bottle.
“Are you pouring on the pounds?” asks the ad, which urges viewers to consider water, seltzer or low-fat milk instead, and warns: “Don’t drink yourself fat.”
The ad — which cost about $277,000 to develop over three fiscal years, including money for creative work and focus …

The Newsroom, August 24, 2009
Obesity is on a rampage. The World Health Organization pegs the number of those affected at more than 300 million worldwide, with a billion more overweight. With obesity comes an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
Now there is more discouraging news.
In a study published in the current online edition of the journal Human Brain Mapping, senior author Paul Thompson, a UCLA professor of neurology, lead author Cyrus A. Raji, a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and their colleagues compared the brains of elderly people …