A new study finds that the origin of obesity lies in the fetal stage of life in development of a fat-burning hormone called orexin.

Fighting fat with fat could be the key to success in the battle against obesity. Recent research has shown that unhealthy white fat can be decreased by increasing the body’s amount of healthy brown fat, resulting in significant weight loss.

This has sparked a great interest for researchers to race forward in the quest for successful methods of increasing amounts of the golden-brown substance in the body. Thus a new study out of Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in Orlando, Florida, has found that a hormone produced in the brain called orexin, can activate brown fat in addition to playing a role in appetite control.

Fat-Burning Hormone Orexin Pits Good Fat Against Bad

In a country where more than two-thirds of the population is overweight or obese, food choices are often made on impulse, not intellect. So, while 47 percent of Americans say they’d like restaurants to offer healthier items like salads and baked potatoes, only 23 percent tend to order those foods, according to a survey last year by food research firm Technomic.

That explains the popularity of KFC’s Double Down, a sandwich of bacon and cheese slapped between two slabs of fried chicken. It’s the reason IHOP offers a Simple & Fit menu with yogurt and fruit bowls, but its top seller remains a 1,180-calorie breakfast sampler of eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, hash browns and pancakes. It’s also why only 11 percent of parents ordered apple slices as an alternative to fries in McDonald’s Happy Meals.

Fit vs. fat: Salads are nice, but burgers are what really sell | The Salt Lake Tribune

The Food Police have stormed Denmark, where it is now a little more expensive to eat fattening food.

The country’s so-called “fat tax” went into effect on Saturday. The tax rate is 16 Danish kroner per kilogram of saturated fat in a food – in terms Americans can understand, that’s about $6.27 per pound of saturated fat – and it kicks in when the saturated fat content of a food item exceeds 2.3%.

The complex formula takes into account the amount of fat used to produce a particular food, not the amount that’s in the final product, according to Ole Linnet Juul, food director at Denmark’s Confederation of Industries. He calculated that the tax adds 12 cents to a bag of chips, 39 cents to a small package of butter and 40 cents to the price of a hamburger.

If this seems like a radical move, consider that Denmark has already banned the use of trans fats, which many doctors say is the worst kind because it raises bad cholesterol and lowers good cholesterol at the same time. Danes also pay sin taxes on sugary items like soda and candy. But the fat tax is believed to be the first of its kind in the world, Linnet Juul told the Associated Press.

Denmark aims to improve health with “fat tax” – latimes.com

Two scientists who unlocked some of the mysteries linked to obesity or a professor who figured out how to make stem cells without human embryos could be candidates for the medicine award when the first of the 2011 Nobel Prizes are announced Monday.

Canadian-born Douglas Coleman and American Jeffrey Friedman have won several prizes for their discovery of leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and body weight, and could be in the running for the coveted prize worth 10 million kronor ($1.5 million).

Obesity and stem cell researchers possible contenders for Nobel prize in medicine – The Washington Post

Denmark on Saturday became the first country in the world to impose a fat tax after a week in which consumers hoarded butter, pizza, meat and milk to avoid the immediate effects.

“We have had to stock up with tonnes of butter and margarine in order to be able to supply outlets,” Soeren Joergensen of Arla Distribution told AFP.

The new tax, designed by Denmark’s outgoing government as a health issue to limit the population’s intake of fatty foods, will add 16 kroner ($2.87, 2.15 euros) per kilo (2.2 pounds) of saturated fats in a product.

This means an increase in the price of a pack of 250 grammes of butter, for example, by 2.20 kroner to more than 18 kroner.

“It has been a chaotic week with a lot of empty shelves. People have been filling their freezers,” Christian Jensen of an independent local Copenhagen supermarket told AFP.

“But actually I don?t think the tax will make that much difference. If people want to buy a cake, they will buy it. But right now they’re saving money,” he added.

The new tax will be levied on all products including saturated fats — from butter and milk to pizzas, oils, meats and pre-cooked foods — in a costing system that Denmark’s Confederation of Industries (DI) says is a bureaucratic nightmare for producers and outlets.

“The way that this has been put together is an administrative nightmare, and I doubt whether it will give better health. It?s more just a tax,” DI foodstuffs spokeswoman Gitte Hestehave told AFP, adding that the costs of levying the tax would be passed on to consumers.

AFP: Denmark levies world’s first fat tax

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the media’s obsession with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s weight has become totally absurd.

On Friday’s “Morning Joe,” during a discussion about obesity prompted by a pathetic column by the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson entitled “Christie’s Hefty Burden,” MSNBC’s Al Sharpton joked, “So what I think we should do is put Governor Christie in jail for 90 days” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Al Sharpton: ‘Put Governor Christie In Jail For 90 Days’ To Lose Weight | NewsBusters.org

Whether or not he lets himself be persuaded to run for president, Chris Christie needs to find some way to lose weight. Like everyone else, elected officials perform best when they are in optimal health. Christie obviously is not.

You could argue that this is none of my business, but I disagree. Christie’s problem with weight ceased being a private matter when he stepped into the public arena — and it’s not something you can fail to notice. Obesity is a national epidemic whose costs are measured not just in dollars and cents but also in lives. Christie’s weight is as legitimate an issue as the smoking habit that President Obama says he has finally kicked.

Yes, the basic arithmetic of calories ingested vs. calories expended is inescapable. But the science of weight control now takes into account the role that genetics might play, along with psychological factors that lie outside our conscious control. There are new options, including gastric surgery, beyond the dieting roller coaster — lose 40 pounds, gain it all back — that Christie says he has been riding for years.

Those who have lost weight and kept it off for extended periods, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, say they have succeeded by making proper diet and exercise part of their lives — not just unpleasant chores that have to be endured.

Politically, I disagree with Christie on almost everything. I’ll have plenty of opportunities to tell him why. Today, I’d just like to offer him a bit of unsolicited, nonpartisan, sincere advice: Eat a salad and take a walk.

Chris Christie’s big problem – The Washington Post

During a United Nations General Assembly summit on non-communicable diseases — a discussion that included diet and eating habits — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said “governments at all levels must make healthy solutions the default social option.

Speaking on the government’s role in diet and health last week, Bloomberg told the UN General Assembly, “There are powers only governments can exercise, policies only governments can mandate and enforce and results only governments can achieve. To halt the worldwide epidemic of non-communicable diseases, governments at all levels must make healthy solutions the default social option. That is ultimately government’s highest duty.”

Earlier in his address Bloomberg lauded the past dietary efforts of NYC, “In 2009 we enacted the first restriction on cholesterol-free artificial trans fat in the city’s food service establishments. Our licensing of street green card producer/vendors has greatly increased the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in neighborhoods with high rates of diet related diseases. And we’ve led a national salt reduction initiative and engaged 28 food manufacturers, supermarkets and restaurant chains to voluntarily commit to reducing excessive amounts of sodium in their products.”

NYC Mayor Bloomberg: ‘Government’s Highest Duty’ Is to Push ‘Healthy’ Foods | CNSnews.com

Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. said Tuesday it is reviving its previously abandoned weight loss drug Contrave, after federal health officials outlined a plan that could bring the drug to market by 2014.

The surprise announcement returns Contrave to the race to be the first new prescription weight loss drug to reach the U.S. market in more than a decade.

Drugmaker revives obesity pill rejected by FDA – USATODAY.com

The worldwide burgeoning of obesity and diabetes, including in developing nations, is causing increasing alarm. This week, the United Nations is bringing attention to these and other noncommunicable diseases at the General Assembly meeting in New York on the prevention of noncommunicable diseases.

But global funding shortfalls, the reality that obesity and diabetes affect the rich and middle class more than other socioeconomic groups and the absence of a proactive civil society will create few incentives for politicians in developing nations to take U.N. resolutions seriously.

U.N. unlikely to sway poorer nations on obesity, diabetes – CNN.com