Our perceptions about dieting and our attitudes about overweight people are shifting, according to a new survey by the NPD Group.

“Women are leading the decline in dieting,” according to Harry Balzer, NPD’s chief food industry analyst. In a survey of 3,800 adults, he found that about 23 percent of women reported being on a diet in 2012. That’s a significant drop from the 35 percent who said they were dieting back in 1992.

And increasingly, Americans seem to be more accepting of a little extra body weight, which a recent study found may be associated with living longer.

Consider this question, which has been on NPD’s National Eating Trends survey for decades:

“Do you agree or disagree with this statement: People who are not overweight look a lot more attractive?”

In 1985, the majority of Americans surveyed — 55 percent — agreed that being thin was a lot more attractive than being heavy.

But now? Fewer than 1 in 4 agree. It seems that as more of us became a little heavier, we changed our views.

As for trends in dieting, it’s hard to know what’s truly changing here.

Another national survey that we’ve reported on, conducted by the International Food Information Council, finds a barely perceptible drop in the number of Americans who say they’re dieting (55 percent in 2012, compared to 56 percent in 2007).

It’s entirely possible that many of us are watching what we eat and consciously limiting calories, but we’re just not calling it a “diet.” So maybe the term “diet” is becoming passe.

“The newer thinking is personal empowerment for change, and making small changes over time that are doable for the individual,” says Madelyn Fernstrom of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Fat Thanks to Sona S. for the tip!

Skinny Isn’t All That: Survey Finds Fewer American Women Are Dieting : The Salt : NPR

Benjamin Kendrick has offered to pay a large amount over the death of Joan Johnston but not the full sum her widower is demanding in compensation.

Paul McGregor, the surgeon’s solicitor, told Perth Sheriff Court that negotiations were continuing between the two parties and the effect of Mrs Johnston’s weight on her lift expectancy was one of the factors being examined.

Mr Kendrick, 36, of Chesham in Buckinghamshire, admitted killing the morbidly obese woman on his way to a medical team bonding course in the Scottish Highlands during 2009.

He was fined £5,000 and banned from driving for three years but walked free from court partly because of his victim’s weight.

Sheriff Michael Fletcher ruled out jailing Kendrick because Mrs Johnston, of Scarborough, North Yorkshire could have survived the head-on crash if she had been of average size.

Dangerous driving surgeon wants to cut compensation because morbidly obese victim ‘faced a shortened life’ – Telegraph

He said: “I’d been thinking of joining a gym for a while — but I only decided to go for it after my story appeared.

“I am grateful to The Sun for giving me the confidence to be here today. I want to come here regularly and get really fit.”

Ex-postie Paul, who ballooned after eating 20,000 calories a day, needs his doctor’s permission to take up gym membership. But he said: “I’m sure he’ll be OK. I feel I have a very fit body inside me.”

Fatman ‘slim’ goes to gym | The Sun |News

The $99 HAPIfork, available this spring, uses sensors to monitor its movement from plate to mouth. It tracks the number of forkfuls per meal and per minute, and it times the interval between each. The fork lights up and vibrates when the diner eats too fast — that is, if there are fewer than 10 seconds between forkfuls. With the smart fork, “you will greatly improve your digestion, and you’ll likely start losing weight,” says a company spokesman. (Presumably, any weight loss is from eating less and slowly, not from food that vibrates off the fork and onto the floor. The HAPIfork vibration is similar to the buzz of a vibrating cell phone.) Although dining data can be tracked over time, the information must be downloaded to a computer after each meal. A spokesman says a Bluetooth version is in the works.

Slower eating has proven health benefits. Studies have found that it takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to alert your brain that you’re full, and eating faster means you are likely to consume more before that happens, says Kari L. Kooi, a registered dietitian at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. The HAPIfork’s size, a bit smaller than typical dinner forks, also helps. “A lot of people stuff their mouths with each bite,” she says.

CES: The latest weight-loss tool? A fork – Breaking News – MarketWatch

Who would have thought that the future of weight loss might lie in the hands of the inventor of the Segway? Dean Kamen, creator of the two-wheeled wonder, along with a team from Aspire Bariatrics, of Philadelphia, has applied for a patent for a pump that can suck food and drink straight out of the stomach.

Users are able to stuff their face before draining their stomach by connecting the pump to a valve surgically installed in their abdominal wall. The makers hope to use it to treat the morbidly obese, and to provide an alternative to a gastric bypass.

Initial setbacks – and here’s the really yucky part – have occurred because the pump struggles to break up large foods. One patient reported “clogging” and had to avoid eating cauliflower, broccoli, Chinese food, stir fry, snow peas, pretzels, chips and steak. No chips? It will never catch on.

Eat, drink and pump it out: new weight loss gadget sucks food straight out of the stomach – Health News – Health & Families – The Independent

Paul Mason lost two-thirds of his 980lb. bulk following a gastric bypass op on the NHS that reduced his stomach to the size of an egg.

Medical bills are so far thought to have cost taxpayers £1million.
And Paul is fighting the NHS to fund further surgery costing up to £30,000 to remove folds of loose skin left after his epic weight loss.

Paul once gorged on 20,000 calories a day — about ten times the recommended level — on a diet of supersized takeaways, fry-ups and up to forty bags of crisps.

But he cast off his electric wheelchair after the op, which saw him switch to a diet of veg and small portions.

He added: “The NHS says my weight must be stable for two years before they will consider operating on me to remove the loose skin.
“But I want the surgery as soon as possible as it will enable me to become more mobile — and that will help me keep the weight off.”

Paul blames childhood bullying for a compulsive eating disorder and says it was made worse by the death of his dad in 1986.

Firefighters removed the front wall of his house and used a forklift to plant him in an ambulance when he needed a hernia operation while weighing 784lb. in 2002.

World’s fattest man sheds 45 stone — but requires skin op | The Sun |News.

Being overweight can extend life rather than shorten it, according to a major new study that runs counter to widespread medical assumptions and years of warnings about the fatal implications of Britain’s expanding waistlines.

Dr Flegal herself stressed that findings are not a licence to eat cream cakes. “We were only looking at mortality – not health. We are absolutely not recommending people overeat. We intended our research to give a little perspective – to counter the view that if you weigh a bit less you will live forever or if you weigh more you are doomed. The relationship between fat and mortality is more complicated than we tend to think.”

Possible explanations for the findings are that fat – adipose tissue – may protect the heart, carrying a few extra pounds may help individuals withstand periods of illness or hospitalisation when they lose appetite, and the distribution of fat on the body is more important than the amount, with extra on the hips being good while extra on the stomach is thought bad.

It may also be that the health risks of being overweight are declining with advances in medicine. Drug treatments to lower blood pressure and cholesterol have contributed to a dramatic fall in heart disease deaths. Fitness, too, may be more important than fatness. People who are overweight, smoke, eat junk food and take no exercise are heading for an early grave.

Recipe for a long life: overweight people have LOWER death risk – Health News – Health & Families – The Independent.

Scientists are using imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

Fructose is a sugar that saturates the American diet.

Researchers have found that after drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn’t resister the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed.

It’s a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role.

These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

One study leader says that scans showed that drinking glucose turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food.

Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin adds that with fructose, “we don’t see those changes” and as a result, “the desire to eat continues — it isn’t turned off.”

Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating | kare11.com

The new data come from autopsies done on U.S. service members who died in October 2001 through August 2011 during combat or from unintentional injuries. Those autopsies were originally performed to provide a full account to service members families of how they died.

The study mirrors autopsy research on Korean and Vietnam war veterans, which found signs of heart disease in as many as three-quarters of deceased service members at the time.

“Earlier autopsy studies… were critical pieces of information that alerted the medical community to the lurking burden of coronary disease in our young people,” said Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the Framingham Heart Study and a senior investigator with the National Institutes of Health.

The findings are not directly comparable, in part because there was a draft in place during the earlier wars but not for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn. When service is optional, healthier people might be more likely to sign up, researchers explained.

Still, Levy said the new study likely reflects declines in heart disease in the U.S. in general over that span.

Altogether the researchers had information on 3,832 service members whod been killed at an average age of 26. Close to 9 percent had any buildup in their coronary arteries, according to the autopsies. And about a quarter of the soldiers with buildup in their arteries had severe blockage.

Service members who had been obese or had high cholesterol or high blood pressure when they entered the military were especially likely to have plaque buildup, Webber and his colleagues reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

One in 12 in military has clogged heart arteries | Reuters