For the past decade China has been fighting an increasingly tough battle against obesity but a report has suggested that perhaps the most effective ways of fighting the flab have been known to the nation all along.

A Hong Kong Hospital Authority-commissioned study out this spring has apparently found that traditional Chinese medicine and medicinal therapies are not only as effective in treating obesity as their Western equivalents, in some cases they even have few side effects.

The World Health Organization claims that obesity affects almost six percent of Chinese, while a report from Johns Hopkins University earlier this year claimed that 20 percent of China’s children were overweight.

As part of the Hong Kong study, the city’s Chinese University poured through around 100 previous studies on Chinese weight-loss treatments that were designed not to help people who simply wanted to become slimmer, but for those who wanted to reduce the health risks, such as the onset of diabetes, which are associated with obesity.

According to the report, the studies — written in both Chinese and English and undertaken in a number of countries including China — found that the herbs most commonly and successfully used in such treatments included “huang quin” (Baical skullcap root) and “shanzha” (hawthorn fruit).

The most successful acupressure points used were those in the ear aimed at the spleen and the stomach, and the points in the leg known as “Sanyinjiao” (near the ankle) and “Zusanli” (just below the knee).

Research shows Chinese methods work in fighting obesity  – NY Daily News.

In exchange for lower health premiums under Obamacare, experts say shoppers could pay higher prices on everything from printer paper to French fries.

Complying with the Affordable Care Act will cost as much as $420 million annually, McDonald’s CFO Peter Bensen said during a conference call Monday, according to CFO Journal. And when the new law goes fully into effect in 2014, it’s possible menu prices will be raised to cover the health costs.

Analysts say businesses with a large number of hourly wage workers, who traditionally had minimal or no health insurance—from fast food joints to retailers—may have to adopt a similar strategy. “I would expect prices at McDonald’s (MCD) to go up,” says Les Funtleyder, who manages a health care fund at Poliwogg, a hedge and venture capital firm. (A McDonald’s spokeswoman says the company doesn’t set prices for its franchised restaurants, which represent about 90% of its 14,000 U.S. outposts, and that “it would be premature and inaccurate to speculate on raising menu prices to offset these costs.”)

But experts say the price hikes could extend beyond chicken McNuggets. Some analysts believe companies may use health care as an excuse to raise prices, even if the added costs don’t warrant the increase. Peter Saleh, a restaurant analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, expects sit-down diners at restaurants like The Olive Garden, owned by Darden Restaurants (DRI), and The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), which own a greater proportion of their locations than some fast food chains, to eventually pay at least 2% more to eat there. But Saleh says it’s too soon to know how the companies will cope with the new mandates: “A lot of them at this point aren’t willing to give us estimates about it.”

Businesses bracing for additional costs as a result of the health-care law tend to be those that previously provided barebones coverage, or so-called “mini-med plans,” which charge low premiums but provide limited benefits, according to a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. These companies represent less than 2% of the market, according to the spokesman. Starbucks, on the other hand, doesn’t anticipate additional expenses to insure its employees because its benefits already meet the standards of the Affordable Care Act, CFO Journal reports.

Will Obamacare Raise the Price of a Big Mac? – Real-Time Advice – SmartMoney

In a new report titled “Globesity — The Global Fight Against Obesity,” Merrill Lynch proposes a basket of 50 stocks it sees making gains from the fight against global obesity. The report identifies specific segments of four key sectors for investors to watch:

Pharmaceuticals and health care: companies taking on obesity-related medical conditions; companies that specialize in equipment for overweight patients, like bigger beds and wider ambulance doors.

Food: companies trying to access the $663 billion health-and-wellness market.

Commercial weight loss, diet management, and nutrition: companies trying to access this already $4 billion U.S. market and the growing global one.

Sports apparel and equipment: companies in tune with the belief that governments and the general public will become increasingly aware that exercise is of paramount importance in taking weight off and keeping it off, and as such will do well selling the necessary equipment.

Is ‘Globesity’ the Next Big Thing in Investing? – DailyFinance

Americans who are employed full time or voluntarily part time enjoy better physical health than those who are unemployed or have less work than they would like. However, those who are not in the workforce at all report the worst health. Employed Americans have a score of 81.4 on the Gallup-Healthways Physical Health Index, compared with 76.1 among those who are employed part time but seeking full-time work, 75.2 for those who are unemployed, and 68.8 for those who are not in the workforce.

Employed Americans in every age group report better physical health than do those who are underemployed or those who are not in the workforce, particularly among those between the ages of 30 and 64.

Those not in the workforce — meaning they are not employed and not actively seeking employment — have the worst physical health overall. While this is partly due to most of these individuals being of retirement age, even among seniors, those who are working report better health than their counterparts who are not. This pattern holds among those between the ages of 30 and 44 as well as those aged 45 to 64, and may be, in part, due to those who have lost or cannot hold work due to poor health and have now stopped seeking employment.

Employed Americans in Better Health Than the Unemployed

Blacks are among the most likely in the United States to be very obese, with about 9% falling into obese class II and 6% obese class III — the highest Body Mass Index (BMI) categories. Asians are by far the least likely to fall into these two classes of obesity. Hispanics are on par with whites for each obesity class.

Relationships by race and the others presented in this article hold true even when controlling for age, ethnicity, race, marital status, gender, employment, income, education, and region.

In U.S., Blacks Most Likely to Be Very Obese, Asians Least

It’s July, and for many of us, that brings back fond childhood memories of family vacations, summer camp or long, happy days spent playing with friends. But this quaint notion of summers as a kids’ paradise is dangerously misleading, evidence from social research suggests.

After spending the summer away from the classroom, children return to school one month or more, on average, behind where they were when the previous year ended. Kids also tend to put on weight in the summer two to three times faster than they do during the school year.

To put it unkindly, the average child becomes dumber and fatter during the vacation. And although there’s no need to declare war on summer, there’s plenty we could do to combat the seasonal learning loss and weight gain.

Consider, first, the evidence for the summer fade effect. Taken together, a variety of studies indicate that students’ academic skills atrophy during the summer months by an amount equivalent to what they learn in a third of a school year, according to a review by Harris Cooper, a professor of education at Duke University, and several co-authors.

This deterioration, furthermore, varies substantially by income and race, and its impact persists even past childhood. Barbara Heyns, a sociologist at New York University who studied Atlanta schoolchildren in the late 1970s, found that although academic gains during the school year were not substantially correlated with income, summer decline was.

Subsequent studies have replicated the finding. Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle and Linda Olson of Johns Hopkins University, for example, found that the summer fade can largely explain why the gap in skills between children on either side of the socioeconomic divide widens as students progress through elementary school. Children from all backgrounds learn at similar rates during the school year, but each summer students of high socioeconomic status continue to learn while those of low socioeconomic status fall behind.

How Summer Is Making U.S. Kids Dumber and Fatter – Bloomberg

Most Americans say obesity is an “extremely” or “very serious” problem to society, the 81% who do so is up significantly from 69% in 2005, the last time Gallup asked this question. Americans now see obesity as a more serious societal issue than cigarettes — a change from the past.

Gallup has asked Americans how serious a problem obesity, cigarettes, and alcohol are to society three times since 2003. The combined percentage rating obesity as extremely or very serious has increased with each survey. While Americans became more concerned about all three issues in 2005, their concerns about cigarettes has since stayed the same and those about alcohol declined slightly.

Nearly four in 10 Americans now say obesity is an extremely serious problem to society, more than the 30% who say the same about cigarettes and 18% about alcohol. The percentage who say obesity is an extremely serious problem is also up from 27% in 2005.

Americans Concerns About Obesity Soar, Surpass Smoking

A third of the world’s adults are physically inactive, and the couch potato lifestyle kills about five million people every year, experts said in the medical journal The Lancet on Wednesday.

“Roughly three of every 10 individuals aged 15 years or older — about 1.5 billion people — do not reach present physical activity recommendations,” they said in a report that described the problem as a “pandemic.”

The picture for adolescents is even more worrying, with four out of five 13- to 15-year-olds not moving enough, it said.

Physical inactivity was described for the study as failing to do 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five times a week, 20 minutes of vigorous activity three times a week, or a combination of the two.

Inactivity increases with age, is higher in women than in men, and more prevalent in high-income countries, the researchers found.

A second study, comparing physical activity levels with population statistics on diseases like diabetes, heart problems and cancer, said lack of exercise claimed more than 5.3 million of the 57 million deaths worldwide in 2008.

It said inactivity was a risk factor comparable to smoking or obesity.

Physical inactivity kills 5 million a year: report – Yahoo! News Canada

Toddlers who watch too much television will also widen their waistlines, according to a University of Montreal study published this week.

The study of 1,314 children from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development Parents were asked, “How much time per day does your child spend watching TV?” at 29 months and then again at 53 months. A two-part follow-up test of muscular fitness was conducted on these children when they reached the second grade. First, the children were asked to do a standing long jump test. Second, the children’s waist circumference was measured.

“The mission of this research is not to guilt parents,” reported lead study author Dr. Caroline Fitzpatrick on Monday. “Childhood is a critical period for the development of habits and we were looking for a more direct physical measure of the impact of television on young children.”

The average 2 to 4-year-old in the study sat through 8.82 hours of TV each week. An increase of 4.1 millimeters around the waste was found by age 10.

The habits of the children were ingrained throughout the participants of the school. The study, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, found nearly 15 percent of the youngsters were watching more than 18 hours of TV a week.

Because researchers relied on mothers’ own reporting of their children’s TV watching habits, Fitzgerald figured their results might be conservative, given the possibility mothers would shave off some TV time.

“Many shows are marketed to parents as educational and beneficial but there is no statistical evidence that this is true,” Fitzpatrick said. “TV watching should be a treat, like chocolate.”

By the numbers: One hour of TV at 29 months led to a 3.61 millimeter decrease in standing long jump results in the second grade. Every hour of TV from 29 months to 53 months led to a 5 percent increase of being in the bottom percentile of the standing long jump test.

One hour of TV from 29 months to 53 months led to a .42 millimeter increase in waste measurement and 18-plus hours per week of TV led to a 7.6 millimeter increase in waste measurement in the second grade.

The study factored in such variables as the family’s income and education as well as the mother’s body mass index.

A 2010 study by Fitzpatrick at the University of Montreal found that each extra hour of TV by toddlers led to a future decrease in how involved they were in school, how good they were at math and how much junk food they ate. Fitzpatrick said she hopes the data will help shape future public health campaigns about the impact of TV watching on children’s health.

Study: Toddlers Who Watch Too Much TV Have Wider Waistlines « CBS DC

Last weekend I met a couple whose children are not permitted to discuss movies or video games at school. The children don’t watch television, have limited computer access and have only seen movies pre-screened by their parents.

There was a time when I might have viewed these restrictions as a bit excessive, but not anymore. With what’s being thrown at kids through media exposure these days, I’m all in with an environment that seeks to filter some of it. As a doctor who treats children, many of whom are overweight or obese, I don’t think there can be much doubt that child-directed advertising is fueling the obesity epidemic. Now, a recently published University of British Columbia study supports that theory with findings that suggest that banning fast-food advertising to children may actually curtail obesity.

Researchers found that a 32-year ban on fast-food advertising to kids in electronic and print media in Quebec resulted in a 13 percent reduction in fast-food expenditures and an estimated 2 billion to 4 billion fewer calories consumed by children in the province. While the rest of Canada has been experiencing the same explosion in childhood obesity seen here in the United States, Quebec has the lowest childhood obesity rate in Canada.

Meanwhile, in the face of our own raging obesity epidemic, child-directed advertising of unhealthful food to children continues unabated. The Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has just released a 2012 report showing that little has changed since 2009, even though the cereal industry claims to have reduced advertising to children.

Despite a slight improvement in overall nutritional quality of kids’ cereals, children still get “one spoonful of sugar in every three spoonfuls of cereal,” according to Jennifer L. Harris, the lead researcher on the Rudd study, and that sugar is heavily marketed: in 2011, 6- to 11-year-olds viewed more than 700 ads per year for cereals on television while preschoolers saw 595. Cereal companies spent $264 million to promote child-targeted cereals in 2011 (an increase of 34 percent from just 2008). Other companies spend millions more promoting unhealthy products — and it works: television viewing and the associated advertising exposure correlate with an increased intake of candy and sugary sodas.

As if pushing unhealthy food wasn’t enough, pharmaceutical companies are now rolling out ads that are designed to appeal to kids. Children’s Claritin, an allergy medication, now includes Madagascar stickers and blogging mothers are encouraged to hold Claritin parties for all the neighborhood kids. We seem to have accepted the idea of companies encouraging children to ask for foods that aren’t healthy choices; now we’re accepting targeted advertising of products that children can’t possibly evaluate.

It doesn’t matter that children aren’t necessarily the ones checking out at the grocery store and driving up to the fast-food outlet. Parents are being bombarded with requests for sugary cereals, fast food and vitamins shaped like dinosaurs. “No” fatigue is rampant, and eventually, “no” doesn’t help. Other studies have shown that once children become teenagers and are able to exert more control over their food choices, they eat less healthily. Years of being saturated with advertising for exactly the foods parents try to regulate can’t help.

Ban on Advertising to Children Linked to Lower Obesity Rates – NYTimes.com