overweight

A recent article published in the American Journal of Physiology reviewed how the brain regulates feeding behaviors. Humans are not the only species to eat food in spurts we like to call meals. Research suggests that this behavior may actually aid survival as it reduces exposure time to the environment and makes responding to fluctuations in the availability of food a bit easier to deal with. Dr. Marise Parent and colleagues at Georgia State University wanted to find out how your body determines when to initiate eating as well as how long the interval between meals should be. Factors that…
Image of a grizzly bear at Yellowstone National Park from http://free-naturewallpaper.com/nature-images/animals/bears/Grizzly-at-… I was so excited to see a story featuring grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. The article was about how Dr. Kevin Corbit at Amgen Inc. is studying grizzly bears in the Bear Center at Washington State University to learn more about obesity. The 12 animals living in the facility were either rescued from places where they were captured after getting too close to humans or were born at the facility. Dr. Corbit was quoted in…
It's no secret that the U.S. has a weight problem.   Nearly 36% of U.S. adults are obese and another 33% are overweight, with respective body mass indices of 30 or higher and 25 to 29.9.   Strategies to address this public health problem rely heavily on individuals' changing their behavior, such as increasing physical activity and reducing calorie intake.   These interventions are easier said than done, and may not be making a dent in the U.S. obesity epidemic.  A result analysis suggests that by 2030, 51% of the U.S. population will be obese. A new report explores the potential links between…
tags: food, health, healthy eating, healthy food, cooking, portion size, obesity, overweight, Jamie Oliver, TEDTalks, streaming video In this affecting video, TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver shares powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., and makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Jamie Oliver is transforming the way we feed ourselves, and our children. Jamie Oliver has been drawn to the kitchen since he was a child working in his father's pub-restaurant. He showed not only a precocious culinary talent but also a passion for creating (and…
tags: man drinking fat, NYC Health Anti-Soda Ad, Are You Pouring on the Pounds?, diet, nutrition, sports drinks, soda, sweetened drinks, television, disgusting, streaming video Most people don't realize how easy it is to gain weight from drinking sugary sodas, juice drinks, sport drinks and sweetened tea and coffee drinks. Just one 20-ounce bottle of soda can pack 250 calories and more than 16 teaspoons of sugar. Is the lemon-flavored iced tea any better? Not by much with 210 calories and 14½ teaspoons of sugar. Sugar-sweetened beverages add hundreds of calories to your diet each day. Don't…
Tyler Cowen linked to a Time article on the phenomenon of Southern Americans being relatively overweight vis-a-vis Americans from other regions of the country. Several reasons are offered, from the lower per capita income of Southern states, to the fact that Southern food tends to be fried and less healthful. But the article doesn't mention one very salient fact: black Americans are heavier than white Americans, and are disproportionately concentrated in Southern states. What is a regional disparity could be accounted for by underlying differences in the distribution of races. State Health…