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 …

The Boston Globe, Stephen Smith, August 3, 2009
Just the other day, a man weighing 470 pounds lumbered into Dr. Caroline Apovian’s office at Boston Medical Center. He was young – only 32 years old – but already, his heart had begun to fail him, a legacy of his extreme obesity.
How much sugar?
Maybe, he asked Apovian, I should have weight-loss surgery. She told him that first, he would need to alter what he eats – and drinks, especially the 2 liters of sugary soft drinks he drains every day.
“I gave him …

JULIE STEENHUYSEN, REUTERS
Obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. medical spending or an estimated $147 billion a year, researchers said on Monday.
They said U.S. obesity rates rose 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, driving an 89 percent increase in spending on treatments for obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other conditions.
Obese people spent an extra $1,429 per year or 42 percent more for medical care in 2006 than did normal weight people, with most of that spent on prescription drugs, the researchers said.
The study, …

AMY D’ONOFRIO AND CAROLYN LOCHHEAD, Hearst Newspapers August 17, 2009Obesity is the elephant in the room of health care reform, a public health catastrophe that kills well more than 100,000 Americans a year, costs New York more than $6.1 billion a year in medical services and promises to shorten U.S. life expectancy for the first time since the Civil War.
Whatever Washington does this year to try to lower medical spending almost certainly will be swamped by the nation’s rising weight. Obesity lurks as a cause behind the top chronic illnesses — …

The New York Times, August 10, 2009
A nationwide survey of obesity rates offers very little good news. More than two-thirds of Americans are now overweight or obese, and the percentage is still rising. The report is based on data for 2005 through 2009 gathered by state health departments with the help of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study defines overweight as a body mass index of 25 to 30, and obesity as a B.M.I. over 30.
The authors acknowledge some debate over the use of B.M.I. For example, …