Poor street lighting, a lack of footpaths and busy roads can be the difference between walking and getting into the car to run a simple errand. It can also be the difference between being a healthy weight and being overweight.

Lack of green space and accessible public transport are making people overweight, obesity specialists say.

The Heart Foundation’s national director of clinical issues, Rob Grenfell, said if open space was inviting and safe, people would leave the car at home. Even putting a footpath through the end of a cul-de-sac to another street could entice more people to take a daily walk.

”But if you have barriers in front of you, such as poor street crossing, poor lighting … you’re less likely to do these sorts of things,” Dr Grenfell said. ”You simply can’t have physical activity if you don’t have the environment to do it in.”

Planning flaws foster obesity

A 350lb. grandmother claims she will die if she isn’t given a gastric bypass, after her operation was cancelled for the second time.

Louise Hastings, 45, was set to undergo surgery on the NHS at Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham this March in a bid to shed the pounds.

The procedure, which shrinks the stomach and restricts the appetite is designed to help people with life-threatening obesity lose weight. It costs between £10,000 and £15,000.

‘They’re playing with my life’: 25-stone woman fears she will die after gastric bypass op is cancelled for the second time | Mail Online

An Iowa woman has given birth to a boy weighing 13 pounds and 13 ounces – without the aid of surgery.

Asher Stewardson was born Thursday at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, measuring 23 1/2 inches long. Fifteen months ago, his brother, Judah, arrived weighing 12 pounds and an ounce at birth.

Mercy officials say only a tenth of 1 percent of all newborns weigh more than 11 pounds at birth.

My Way News – Nearly 14-pound baby boy born in Des Moines

Turns out obesity is in the eye of the beholder. Whether you’re diagnosed as obese is supposed to depend on your own body-mass index — but a new study shows that it can also depend on your doctor’s.

Physicians who were overweight or obese were far less likely to diagnose obese patients than physicians at a more normal weight, according to research published this month in the journal Obesity.

Are you obese? Might depend on whether your doctor is, too – latimes.com

They say there is mounting research that it is the type of oil used, and whether or not it has been used before, that really matters.

The latest study, published in the British Medical Journal, found no association between the frequency of fried food consumption in Spain – where olive and sunflower oils are mostly used – and the incidence of serious heart disease.

However, the British Heart Foundation warned Britons not to “reach for the frying pan” yet, pointing out that the Mediterranean diet as a whole was healthier than ours.

Spanish researchers followed more than 40,000 people, two-thirds of whom were women, from the mid 1990s to 2004.

At the outset they asked them how often they ate fried foods, either at home or while out. They then looked to see whether eating fried foods regularly increased the likelihood of falling ill from having coronary heart disease, such as a heart attack or angina requiring surgery.

Dividing participants into four groups, from lowest fried food intake to highest, they found no significant difference in heart disease.

There were 606 incidents linked to heart disease in total, but they were split relatively evenly between the four groups.

The authors concluded: “In a Mediterranean country where olive and sunflower oils are the most commonly used fats for frying, and where large amounts of fried foods are consumed both at and away from home, no association was observed between fried food consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease or death.”

Fried food heart risk ‘a myth’ – Telegraph

Hoping to combat the growing epidemic of childhood obesity, the Obama administration on Wednesday announced its long-awaited changes to government-subsidized school meals, a final round of rules that adds more fruits and green vegetables to breakfasts and lunches and reduces the amount of salt and fat.

The announcement came months after the food industry won a vote in Congress to block the administration from carrying out an earlier proposal that would have reduced starchy foods like potatoes and prohibited schools from counting a small amount of tomato paste on a slice of pizza as a vegetable. Under the latest rules, potatoes are not restricted, and tomato paste can qualify as a vegetable serving.

The rules were announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Michelle Obama at Parklawn Elementary School, in Alexandria, Va.

New School Lunch Rules Aimed at Reducing Obesity

The company, which has enjoyed a stellar few years following the economic crisis, said that its turnover had increased by 12pc to $27bn, with net income increasing 11pc to $5.5bn.

This is the ninth consecutive year that sales have increased after it suffered from a crisis of confidence at the end of the 1990s.

In the US like-for-like sales increased by 7.1pc in the final quarter and 6pc for the year, its highest level of growth since 2006.

Its European restaurants continued to perform well as it won over consumers on a budget – both families trading down from pizza restaurants and commuters buying cheap coffee on the way into work. European sales jumped 10pc on a like-for-like basis, the company said.

McDonald’s hits record $27bn turnover – Telegraph

Obese teens are on both sides of the bullying divide with a greater likelihood of being victims and perpetrators compared to their peers, a new study suggests.

Lead author Atif Kukaswadia of Queen’s University said the findings are built on a previous cross-sectional study by co-authors and Queen’s professors Wendy Craig, Ian Janssen and William Pickett, which showed obese kids were more likely to be involved in bullying.

For the current study published in Obesity Facts, the European Journal of Obesity, researchers looked at a sample of 1,738 students at 16 Ontario high schools in 2006 and 2007. The youths were participants in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children Survey.

Youngsters were asked questions about bullying involvement with two specific forms of bullying investigated: physical and relational. Relational bullying refers to excluding or ignoring an individual or spreading false rumours or lies about a person.

Perpetration of physical bullying was assessed through the question: “I hit, kicked, pushed, shoved around, or locked another student(s) indoors.”

Self-reported weight and height measurements were calculated to determine body-mass index, or BMI.

Among females who weren’t bullied in 2006, Kukaswadia said 14.8 per cent of obese females perpetrated relational bullying in 2007, compared to two per cent of overweight females and 3.8 per cent of normal weight females.

Researchers found approximately two-fold increases in the odds of bullying involvement among obese males as victims and perpetrators of physical bullying.

They conclude that their findings are in line with previous cross-sectional studies confirming obese kids are “at risk for social consequences attributal to their appearance.”

Obese teens can be both bullies and victims: study

Childhood obesity is a complex issue with no simple solutions, but involving the entire family in weight loss and health may help kids achieve their goals, a report finds.

A scientific statement released Monday in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Assn. reviews strategies shown to be successful in helping kids slim down. Some studies find that obese children can have symptoms normally associated with adult obesity, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. Others suggest that overweight kids often turn into overweight adults.

Involving parents in weight loss efforts could go a long way in helping children change their behaviors, the authors said.

“In many cases, the adults in a family may be the most effective change agents to help obese children attain and maintain a healthier weight,” said Myles Faith, chairman of the American Heart Assn.’s  statement writing group, in a news release. “To do so, the adults may need to modify their own behavior and try some research-based strategies.”

Family involvement may help obese kids lose weight – latimes.com

Overweight girls in their late teens were twice as likely as their normal-weight peers to report having a lot of acne in a large new survey of Norwegian teenagers that did not find the same link in boys.

Some 3,600 young people in Oslo, aged 18 and 19, provided information on their pimples, weight, diet and other health and lifestyle factors.

Only about a tenth of the girls and 15 percent of the boys fell into the overweight or obese categories, based on their body mass index a measure of weight relative to height.

But among the overweight and obese girls, 19 out of every 100 said they had experienced a lot of acne in the past week, compared to 13 of every 100 normal-weight girls who reported recent acne.

When the researchers took into account other potential influences, such as diet, smoking and “mental distress,” they determined that overweight and obese girls were twice as likely to have acne.

Obesity and acne: Overweight teen girls twice as likely to develop skin condition – thestar.com