Weight screenings in high school were not enough to get overweight and obese kids on track toward a healthier weight, a recent U.S. study found.

With obesity rates soaring among Arkansas teenagers, the state implemented a screening program in schools in 2003, with alerts sent to parents of kids with weight problems. But kids screened by the program in early high school and again in their junior and senior years did not seem to benefit compared to kids exempt from screening, the study found.

While the screening and reporting measures in Arkansas have been both popular and controversial, there is no evidence to support their use, said study author Kevin Gee of the University of California, Davis School of Education, in email to Reuters Health.

Rates of teenage obesity have more than quadrupled in the last 30 years and now more than one in five teens is obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: Screening teens for obesity may not help them lose weight | Fox News

Scientists have discovered that obese people can imagine smells more vividly than those who are slim.

They believe differences in our ability to dream up odours – especially those that whet the appetite – may play a role in food cravings.

Previous research has shown that food cravings occur more often in obese individuals.

Researchers theorised that having a vivid imagination when it comes to smell may intensify desire for food by conjuring stronger thoughts of flavours and aromas.

People are known to vary greatly in their ability to imagine smells of all kinds, whether it be baked bread, chocolate or the sweet scent of roses.

In the study, volunteers completed a series of questionnaires that asked them to imagine both visual and odour cues and then rate their vividness.

Participants with a higher body mass index (BMI) reported a greater ability to imagine both food and non-food odours vividly.

Lead scientist Dr Barkha Patel, from Yale School of Medicine in the US, said: “These findings highlight the need for a more individualistic approach in identifying factors that may increase risk for weight gain.”

Source: Sense of smell linked to obesity

The true cost of an unhealthy lifestyle of little exercise, poor diet and smoking has been quantified by scientists who found that it can reduce lifespan by 23 years.

People who develop largely preventable conditions like heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes are cutting their life short by decades, a 50 year study has shown.

It is estimated that around 80 per cent of cases could be prevented by keeping weight under control, exercising more, eating a healthy diet, and not smoking or drinking too much.

For a man in his 40s, suffering from all three conditions reduces life by 23 years. It means that a 40-year-old’s life expectacy would drop from 78 to just 55. Likewise someone in their 60s could lose 15 years, meaning a 60-year-old man might have just three years of life left.

The cost is far greater than smoking, which is thought to limit lifespan by 10 years.

“We showed that having a combination of diabetes and heart disease is associated with a substantially lower life expectancy,” says Dr Emanuele Di Angelantonio from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge

Source: Unhealthy lifestyle can knock 23 years off lifespan