People may be unknowingly consuming significant amounts of potentially harmful trans fats as a result of misleading food labels, researchers say.

The law allows foods that contain less than 0.5 grams of fat to be labeled as containing zero grams of fat. That’s because the policy requires that fat amounts less than 5 grams be listed in 0.5 gram increments, and allows food producers to round down to the lower increment. Foods with more than 5 grams of fat are required to use one gram increments.

This means if a product has 0.49 grams of trans fat, manufacturers can label its trans fat content as zero.

Consuming as few as three such food items could lead a person to exceed the recommended intake of 1.11 grams daily without knowing it, Brandt said. For example, consuming three servings of food labeled “zero trans fat,” each of which actually contained 0.49 grams of trans fat, would bring the total to 1.47 grams.

You might be eating more trans fats than you think – Health – Food safety – msnbc.com

The first week of January usually sees a spike in gym membership enrollments, but how many people actually stick to their resolution of exercising more and losing weight throughout the year? The CBC is launching an in-depth multiplatform focus on the health of Canadians called Canada Weighs In, which airs from January 2 to January 6.

Tonight sees the premiere of Village on a Diet, a 10-episode documentary series airing Mondays at 9 p.m. The series follows the northern B.C. town of Taylor, where over 60 percent of its population is either overweight or obese. However, the town has decided to attempt to lose one collective ton in the next three months and have their struggles and successes documented on camera.

Village on a Diet puts Canada’s obesity epidemic on CBC TV | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com

A study of thousands of American babies and toddlers finds many are obese before they’ve taken their first bites of food.

Researchers have found one out of three babies are either obese or at risk for the condition by the time they reach nine months of age. Experts say babies should not be put on a diet. Instead, their parents need to learn healthy lifestyle habits.

Some childhood obesity detected at nine months of age – WLBT 3 – Jackson, MS:

His clothes are custom-made and sometimes he goes naked to avoid having to get dressed. But now his frame has shrunk so much he can get about on a special motorised chair.

Mr Mason admitted to eating 20,000 calories a day, eight times the amount needed by an average man.

Firefighters had to demolish the front wall of his former home so they could drive a fork lift truck inside to lift him out and put him into an ambulance when he needed a hernia operation in 2002.

‘I don’t want to go back to the old me. I’m determined to carry on losing weight until I’m a normal size. I’m much happier and healthier now.’

The former postman, who is is still believed to be the world’s heaviest man, had part of his stomach stapled off so that all the food he ate went into a small ‘pouch’, vastly restricting the amount he could eat. He was driven 143 miles in an ambulance with reinforced beds to have the operation at the specialist St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester. Doctors put him on a crash diet to bring his weight down to a safe level so the operation could go ahead.

His care bill costs taxpayers an estimated £100,000 a year and is believed to have topped £1million over the last 15 years.

World’s heaviest man Paul Mason has lost 20 stone after gastric bypass surgery | Mail Online