Rapper and actor Heavy D, who played an influential role in shaping rap music in the late 80s and early 90s with a fusion of New Jack Swing and reggae, has died. He was 44.

Heavy D, who was born Dwight Arrington Myers, died Tuesday in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after collapsing on the walkway outside his Beverly Hills home, according to law enforcement sources. The Los Angeles County coroners office is investigating the cause of death.

Myers, who was 6 feet 3 and weighed more than 300 pounds at one point, anointed himself the “Overweight Lover,” but he had slimmed down in recent years.

Heavy D obituary: Singer who shaped rap in the 80s dies at 44 – latimes.com

Researchers in the United States said on Tuesday they had found a “shocking” association — if only a statistical one — between violence by teenagers and the amount of soda they drank.

High-school students in inner-city Boston who consumed more than five cans of non-diet, fizzy soft drinks every week were between nine and 15-percent likelier to engage in an aggressive act compared with counterparts who drank less.

“What we found was that there was a strong relationship between how many soft drinks that these inner-city kids consumed and how violent they were, not only in violence against peers but also violence in dating relationships, against siblings,” said David Hemenway, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“It was shocking to us when we saw how clear the relationship was,” he told AFP in an interview.

Teen violence linked to heavy soda diet: study

Like a lot of companies, Veridian Credit Union wants its employees to be healthier. In January, the Waterloo, Iowa-company rolled out a wellness program and voluntary screenings.

It also gave workers a mandate – quit smoking, curb obesity, or you’ll be paying higher healthcare costs in 2013. It doesn’t yet know by how much, but one thing’s for certain – the unhealthy will pay more.

The credit union, which has more than 500 employees, is not alone.

In recent years, a growing number of companies have been encouraging workers to voluntarily improve their health to control escalating insurance costs. And while workers mostly like to see an employer offer smoking cessation classes and weight loss programs, too few are signing up or showing signs of improvement.

Insight: Firms to charge smokers, obese more for healthcare

Drinking cold water causes the body to burn more calories and could be an effective weight-loss method for overweight children, according to research published in the International Journal of Obesity.

Studies have suggested that drinking water has a thermogenic effect in adults that significantly increases their resting energy expenditure (REE), the calories required to maintain normal body functions in a resting state.

To Burn Calories, Try Ice Water – WSJ.com