FLOTUS: Obesity Absolutely Greatest Threat To National Security.

Fashion magazines are notoriously known for using models who are unhealthily thin and photoshopping them to look even thinner, but apparently skinny no longer sells like it used to, so now some of these mags are adopting an equally disturbing trend of digitally enhancing these models to look larger and curvier.

Called reverse retouching, models are now being fattened up with more weight on their arms, their legs and their mid-sections. It’s a disturbing practice of using models who have been schooled to believe that skinnier is better–even at the expense of their health–and then adding curves where none exist.

It’s something that first came under scrutiny in 2010 when Jane Druker, the editor of Healthy magazine in England who is dedicated to healthy faces and figures, admitted that a cover girl arrived at the shoot looking “really thin and unwell.” But rather than being sent home to get healthy and gain some weight, the magazine chose to use her and simply retouch the photos to make her look fuller.

Disturbing Trend Has Skinny Models Airbrushed To Look Fatter

First Lady Michelle Obama served a healthy meal to kids today, attending the official “Kids’ State Dinner.” The event was held at the White House to promote the First Lady’s “Lets Move” anti-obesity initiative.

Here is the menu, which was assembled with winning recipes submitted by children for the contest. (via the pool report)

The menu:  Kale Chips from the New York winner were placed on each table ahead of the appetizer, which was Quinoa Black Bean and Corn Salad from the Arizona winner.  The entree was “Yummy Cabbage Sloppy Joes” from the Kansas winner, accompanied by Baked Zucchini Fries from the North Carolina winner. Dessert was two recipes:  A Strawberryana Smoothie from the Hawaii winner; and a “Summer Fruit Garland” from the South Dakota winner, which was chunks of fruit on a wooden skewer.

“All the kids are winners,” stressed Michelle Obama’s Deputy Communications Director Semonti Stephens to the children that attended the dinner.

First Lady serves ‘Cabbage Sloppy Joes’ and ‘Zucchini Fries’ to kids for state dinner | WashingtonExaminer.com

The CDC estimates obesity-related health care costs $147 billion per year.

I very much doubt America is going to do anything, as a matter of public health policy, that has any appreciable effect on obesity rates in the next couple of decades. Its not that its impossible for governments to hold down obesity; France, which had rapidly rising childhood obesity early this century, instituted an aggressive set of public-health interventions including school-based food and exercise shifts, nurse assessments of overweight kids, visits to families where overweight kids were identified, and so forth. Their childhood obesity rates stabilised at a fraction of Americas. The problem isnt that its not possible; rather, its that America is incapable of doing it.

Obesity: Another thing its too late to prevent | The Economist.

The federal government released its “obesity map” on Monday, outlining the rates of obesity and how rates in the states compare. Colorado gets the svelte bragging rights, with 20.7% of its adults obese. At the other end of the scale is Mississippi, with a rate of 34.9%.

California had a rate of 23.8%. The CDC has published all the states’ figures.

Overall, the rate for the South was 29.5%, followed by the Midwest at 29%, the Northeast at 25.3% and the West at 24.3%.

Mississippi fattest, Colorado thinnest in new federal obesity statistics – latimes.com

A new study claims that obesity could not only increase a driver’s risk of being in a car accident, but also result in more severe injuries.

The study, conducted by Canadian scientists at the University of Laval and published in the Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, claimed that morbidly obese drivers may be at increased risk of a crash due to weight-related health complications.

Additionally, car designs that are less than sympathetic to larger frames could leave obese drivers in more critical condition following an accident.

Study: Obesity Increases Driver’s Risk Of Being In Car Accident « CBS Seattle

Robyn Lawley, 6’2 and size 16, became Australian Vogue’s first plus-size cover girl and is now the new face of a plus-sized U.K. lingerie line, Boux Avenue.

“The brand is striving to promote a healthy body image and their size range reflects this.  I’m a normal size. I wish we could all be known as models, rather than plus-size,” she told The Australian in a recent interview.

Vogue Model Robyn Lawley’s Plus-Size Lingerie Campaign. Total Game Changer | Fashion – Yahoo! Shine.

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