It’s official: Americans’ 24/7 culture of work, entertainment and digital connectivity now also extends to our dietary consumption patterns, new research finds.

Americans’ erratic, round-the-clock eating patterns, suggests the new study, have probably contributed to an epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. But they can be changed, and the restoration of a longer nighttime “fast” shows promise as a means to lower weight and better health, researchers add.

In a study that detailed the consumption patterns of just over 150 nondieting, non-shift-working people in and around San Diego for three weeks, researchers at the Salk Institute in La Jolla found that a majority of people eat for stretches of 15 hours or longer most days — and fast for fewer than nine hours a night.

We snarf a tidbit at a midmorning meeting, nibble for much of the afternoon, knock back a drink or two with dinner and keep noshing till bedtime. Fewer than a quarter of the day’s calories were consumed before noon, they discovered. And more than a third of participants’ average daily calories, the research revealed, were consumed after 6 p.m.

Despite participants’ typical claim to consuming three meals a day, “a breakfast-lunch-dinner temporal pattern was largely absent,” the researchers wrote in an article published Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Source: Longer fasts might help with weight loss but Americans eat all day long – LA Times

The national carrier of India, Air India, is grounding around 130 flight attendants after measuring their BMI body fat levels

Source: Air India’s flight attendants ‘too fat to fly’

In the controversial video, Arbour says, “Fat shaming is not a thing. Fat people made that up. That’s the race card, with no race.” She goes on to justify her point in the spirited, six-minute video.

In the YouTube community, where acceptance has flourished and users are prompted to share their own stories (including the high-profile, celebrity-driven “It Gets Better” campaign), the video’s backlash was not unexpected.

Whitney Way Thore, star of TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life, took issue with the video and posted a response of her own, which has gained about 50,000 views. The response was first spotted by CNN.”Fat shaming is a thing. It’s a really big thing, no pun intended. It is the really nasty spawn of a larger parent problem called body shaming, which I’m fairly certain everybody on the planet, especially women, have experienced,” Thore says.

Source: Comedian shut down after ‘Dear Fat People’ goes viral

The devastating cost of carrying excess pounds in middle age has been highlighted in a new study which shows every extra point of BMI speeds up the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by nearly seven months.

Although previous studies have suggested that a healthy diet and exercise can ward off dementia, it is the first time that the impact of poor lifestyle has been quantified so starkly.

The obesity epidemic has risen alongside the increase in dementia, and scientists have long suspected a link.

Now US researchers from the government-affiliated National Institute on Ageing have found that even having a BMI (Body Mass Index) just one point over a safe level, speeds up the onset of dementia for people aged 50 or over. For people who are seriously obese, they could develop neurodegenerative disease years a decade before they would have if they were a healthy weight.

“We think these findings are important because they add to a substantial amount of knowledge about how obesity affects Alzheimer’s disease,” said lead author Dr Madhav Thambisetty.

“But more importantly, it indicates if we can maintain a healthy body mass index even as early as midlife, it might have longlasting protective effects towards delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease decades later.”

Source: Body Mass Index predicts how soon Alzheimer’s will develop – Telegraph

Kermit the Frog has been spotted out and about with a new lady, Denise, after splitting with his ex-girlfriend Miss Piggy last month.

In typical fashion, people on Twitter had a lot to say about Kermit’s new lady and, while he denies speculation they are romantically linked, the pictures appear to tell another story.

Many have expressed dismay that Kermit the Frog ditched the feminist and fuller-figured Miss Piggy for a younger, skinnier model, who has not yet expressed opinions on the works of Germaine Greer or bell hooks.

Source: Feminists are angry that Kermit the Frog’s new girlfriend is young and thin – Telegraph