Some people who suffer from chronic weight issues may soon get some help from a pill.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Wednesday approved Belviq, or lorcaserin hydrochloride, to be combined with a reduced-calorie diet and exercise, for treatment of chronic weight problems.

Specifically, the FDA says, it is approved for overweight or obese adults who have one or more medical conditions due to their weight, such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol.

The FDA says the drug works by activating a receptor in the brain that helps a person to eat less and still feel full.

Fat Thanks to Sunita K. for the tip!

FDA approves drug to treat some obese, overweight adults – – CNN.com Blogs

In a move that could significantly expand insurance coverage of weight-loss treatments, a federal health advisory panel on Monday recommended that all obese adults receive intensive counseling in an effort to rein in a growing health crisis in America.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force urged doctors to identify patients with a body mass index of 30 or more — currently 1 in 3 Americans — and either provide counseling themselves or refer the patient to a program designed to promote weight loss and improve health prospects.

Under the current healthcare law, Medicare and most private insurers would be required to cover the entire cost of weight-loss services that meet or exceed the task forces standards.

Obese adults should get counseling, federal panel says – latimes.com

A 400-pound woman decided to strip down to her birthday suit while she sat on a bus bench in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday afternoon.

Patricia McCollum was arrested and charged with exposure of sexual organs in public and was initially held on a $100 bond, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The 52-year-old, who is currently homeless, was sitting buck naked on a bus bench at 3900 N. Ocean Blvd. She claims she was only trying to put on a different outfit.

“That’s why I was changing my clothes on the bus bench. I don’t have anywhere else to stay but bus benches,” McCollum said during a first appearance court hearing Thursday.

400 Pound Woman Arrested For Wearing Birthday Suit On Bus Bench « CBS Miami

A recent study conducted by scientists in London found that the obese persons of the world are playing an increasingly large role in the rate at which the planet’s finite resources are used.

“Increasing population fatness could have the same implications for world food energy demands as an extra half a billion people living on the earth,” the study concluded.

The findings were published in the BMC Public Health journal earlier this year.

Research was conducted based on the theory that the body mass of a population should be factored into the amount of energy it burns, in addition to the number of people residing in a certain region.

Though obesity touches all corners of the Earth, it was found that Americans were especially weighing down the planet.

“If all countries had the [body mass index] distribution of the USA, the increase in human biomass of 58 million [metric tons] would be equivalent in mass to an extra 935 million people of average body mass, and have energy requirements equivalent to that of 473 million adults,” the research dictated.

Study: Obesity Could Lead To Depletion Of Earth’s Resources « CBS Atlanta

Wendy’s is serving up a new kind of, um, questionable combo to raise awareness for a cause.

The fast food chain is partnering up with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and will dole out four small Frostys — Wendy’s signature ice cream treat — to anyone who donates $1 to the organization, the global.christianpost.com explains.

As global.christianpost.com points out, while unhealthy eating habits, and sugary foods in particular, are a direct cause of Type 2 Diabetes, they are not linked to Type 1 Diabetes, an autoimmune disorder.

However, as the JDRF promotes on its website, good eating habits — among those exercising “some good self-control” — are important to the health of those with Type 1 Diabetes.

And it’s not the first time the two seemingly contradictory organizations have combined efforts. In 2009, a Wendy’s in Austin, Texas, sold books of coupons good for four free Frostys, and donated all of the resulting proceeds to the JDRF, according to a press release.

Fat Thanks to Mandy A. for the tip!

Wendy’s Gives 4 Frostys To Donors Who Support Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

ORIGINAL ORDER
	IN CITY COUNCIL
	June 18, 2012
MAYOR DAVIS
WHEREAS: High intake of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages increases the risk of obesity and diabetes; and WHEREAS: New York City has a plan to limit the serving size of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages sold in restaurants; now therefore be it ORDERED: That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to refer the matter of a ban on soda and sugar-sweetened beverages in restaurants to the Cambridge Public Health Department for a recommendation.

City Of Cambridge – CITY CLERK OFFICE, CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS

The board hand-picked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that must approve his ban of selling large sugar-filled drinks at restaurants might be looking at other targets.

The New York City Board of Health showed support for limiting sizes of sugary drinks at a Tuesday meeting in Queens.  They agreed to start the process to formalize the large-drink ban by agreeing to start a six-week public comment period.

At the meeting, some of the members of board said they should be considering other limits on high-calorie foods.

One member, Bruce Vladeck, thinks limiting the sizes for movie theater popcorn should be considered.

“The popcorn isn’t a whole lot better than the soda,” Vladeck said.

Another board member thinks milk drinks should fall under the size limits.

“There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories,” said board member Dr. Joel Forman.

Mayor Bloomberg says the drink rules are an attempt to fight obesity in the city.  It would limit food service establishments in the city from serving drinks bigger than 16 ounces but would allow refills.

The New York City Restaurant Association is fighting the proposal and is considering legal action of it goes into effect.

Health panel talks about wider food ban – New York News | New York Breaking News | NYC Headlines

A council has overturned a ban which prevented British schoolgirl Martha Payne from posting pictures of her school dinners on her blog Neverseconds.

Argyll and Bute council performed the astonishing U-turn just hours after issuing a rambling, and defiant statement, defending its decision while attacking the nine year-old for her critical blog.

Insisting there was “no place for censorship”, Roddy McCuish, the SNP leader, today announced the ban had been overturned amid mounting public criticism, including on Twitter, the micro-blogging site.

He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “There’s no place for censorship in Argyll and Bute Council and there never has been and there never will be.

“I’ve just instructed senior officials to immediately withdraw the ban on pictures from the school dining hall. It’s a good thing to do, to change your mind, and I’ve certainly done that.”

He added there was “absolutely no place” for newspaper reporting attacking dinner ladies, but agreed “100 per cent” this criticism was not directed at Martha.

Mr McCuish said he had not had the opportunity to speak to the Paynes but would be doing so in the coming week. He said he would be dealing with the initial overreaction from the council “in due course”.

His dramatic intervention, came after Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef, led the public backlash against its ban, which came after the Scottish Daily Record published a story under the headline “Time to fire the dinner ladies…”

Victory for Martha Payne as Argyll and Bute council backs down on school dinner blog ban – Telegraph

Burger King wants to lure customers this summer with a barbecue party — and a bacon sundae.

The world’s second biggest hamburger chain on Thursday is launching several pork, beef and chicken sandwiches as limited time offers. And for a sweet ending, the company is also offering a bacon sundae — vanilla soft serve with fudge, caramel, bacon crumbles and a piece of bacon — that started in Nashville, Tenn. earlier this year.

The salty-sweet dessert clocks in at 510 calories, 18 grams of fat and 61 grams of sugar.

The limited-time items are Burger King’s latest push to win back customers with a revived menu and reverse sliding market share, an effort that started soon after the company was taken private by the private equity firm 3G Capital in late 2010.

Earlier this year, Burger King launched its biggest-ever menu expansion including fruit smoothies, snack wraps and new salads. The items were intended to go after a broader audience of moms and families, a shift from the chain’s previous strategy of courting young men with calorie bombs.

Ice Cream Whopper: Burger King Offering Bacon Sundae « CBS Connecticut

In a new study of U.S. preteen and teen girls, daily exercise was strongly linked to weight and obesity in white girls but not black girls.

Although it’s still important to promote physical activity in all young people, according to the researchers that may not be enough to prevent black girls — who have a higher rate of obesity to begin with — from gaining weight.

“I think everyone would agree we need people to be active. It’s not sufficient on its own to prevent weight gain, but it’s really an important part of the equation,” said Alison Field, who studies weight in adolescents and women at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Still, the new findings “would suggest that… what we’ve been recommending may not be the perfect fit for African Americans,” Field, who wasn’t involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

One possibility is that along with other lifestyle changes, black girls need to get a lot more exercise than white girls to start making a difference in their obesity risk, she added.

But it’s unclear why that would be the case, and just how much physical activity they would need.

Field said the results are “sobering” given that black girls typically are less active to begin with and getting teen girls involved and engaged in new types of exercise is particularly challenging.

The findings come from a second analysis of data originally collected by the National Institutes of Health, which followed girls in Cincinnati, Berkeley, California and Rockville, Maryland starting when they were nine or ten years old in 1985.

For the new analysis, James White of Cardiff University and Russell Jago of the University of Bristol, both in the UK, used data on physical activity, eating habits, weight and height from when the girls were 12 and 14 years old.

Physical activity was measured over three days with a device called an accelerometer, which is kept in a pouch above the hip and calculates how much time the wearer spends walking, running or otherwise being active.

At age 14, close to 16 percent of the black girls qualified as obese, compared to just five percent of white girls.

The researchers found the most active white 12-year-olds were 85 percent less likely to be obese at the second reading than the least active. That held up when they took into account girls’ diets and how much time they spent sitting.

But for black girls, there was no clear link between physical activity at age 12 and obesity at 14.

The study, published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, included 1,148 girls, split roughly evenly between black and white adolescents.

THE ROLE OF GENES

Another report published in the same journal found certain genes may affect a person’s chance of being obese as a teen and young adult — but that those influences may also start as early as a few years of age.

Black girls don’t benefit as much from exercise: study | Reuters