The total economic cost of overweight and obesity in the United States is $270 billion per year while the cost in Canada is about $30 billion a year, a new study shows.

The $300 billion total cost in the United States and Canada is the result of: increased need for medical care ($127 billion); loss of worker productivity due to higher rates of death ($49 billion); loss of productivity due to disability of active workers ($43 billion); and loss of productivity due to total disability ($72 billion), said the Society of Actuaries (SOA).

Fat Thanks to Maureen O. for the tip!

Cost of obesity approaching $300 billion a year – USATODAY.com

We need to challenge the myth that sloth and sedentary behaviour are largely responsible for obesity. We need to stop arguing that individuals and parents are solely responsible.

Politicians and health bureaucrats need to acknowledge the changed thinking of scientists and researchers about the underlying cause of obesity. A significant biological component drives the very behaviour we focus on.

A major part of obesity is hereditary.  There are also lifelong consequences of poor or excessive maternal nutrition. Children who have poor nutrition before birth are predisposed to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and even mental disorders in adult life.

We should stop putting blame on obese people

EDMONTON — Claudia Farner is half the woman she used to be. She has lost 220 pounds: 40 before her October 2008 bariatric surgery and 180 since she changed her lifestyle, waking up at 4 a.m. for daily swims and regularly pushing weights with former Edmonton Eskimo Gizmo Williams.

But she’s now being held back by her own stretched skin, which hangs from her arms, torso and legs, needs to be tucked awkwardly into her swimsuit, causes moist rashes and raw sores and prevents her from running or taking Samba dance classes.

“We have to wait until the skin’s off because it’s just too painful. If it keeps bouncing around, you can feel it, how it tears on your skin,” Farner, 43, said. She also has a hard time showering and keeping the skin folds dry with baby powder and corn starch, especially in the summer’s heat. While swimming isn’t painful, her skin drags back on the waves. “I’m at the point where I can’t really lose any more weight because it’s hindering me so much. There is physically no room for me to go further.”

Extra skin weighing down biggest losers

Partnerships between KFC and the McGrath Foundation, Nestle and Jenny Craig, McDonald’s and Weight Watchers, and Domino’s Pizza and the weight-loss show The Biggest Loser have been criticised for trying to make brands famous for selling burgers, fries and lollies appear more healthy.

Jane Martin, of the Obesity Policy Coalition, called this ”weightwashing” – a tactic to convince consumers the fast-food industry was responding to the obesity epidemic, in the same way ”greenwashing” allowed polluting businesses to appear environmentally responsible.

”Junk food manufacturers are at the forefront of this strategy, which is similar to what we have already seen adopted by the tobacco and oil industries,” Ms Martin said.

”It gives them the veneer of corporate social responsibility.”

McDonald’s, Domino’s, Nestle criticised for health charity deals

A new study suggests some some chemicals, especially the chemicals in cigarette smoke, are responsible for many cases of diabetes and obesity.

Federal researchers appointed by the National Toxicology Program said Thursday that arsenic and chemicals found in cigarette smoke, pesticides and plastic are strongly linked to diabetes and obesity.

The strongest link was between pregnant women who smoke and children who later become obese and develop type-2 diabetes.

However, the researchers stress that most cases of obesity and diabetes are caused by poor diet and lack of exercise.

Study Suggests Link Between Chemicals And Diabetes, Obesity – OzarksFirst.com

The American Cancer Society now estimates a full third of cancer deaths in Minnesota are due to one problem in particular, obesity.

Sixty-two percent of Minnesotans are either overweight or obese.

Angie Rolle with the Minnesota division of the American Cancer Society said cancer is the number one killer in Minnesota, deadlier than heart attacks or stroke.

Rolle said, “We have a significant opportunity, if we can get the word out and have people take some control over their own health and reduce those risk factors, we have an opportunity to prevent cancer deaths.”

One-third of Minnesota cancer deaths caused by obesity | Minneapolis and St. Paul | kare11.com

Whether hurtful comments from family members or getting fired for being too fat, organizers of what is being billed as the first Canadian summit on weight discrimination, to be held Monday in Toronto, say stigma against the obese is pervasive and growing and that the “war” on obesity has become so laden with moral overtones, “we can’t even have a rational discussion about what the causes and solutions are,” says Dr. Arya Sharma, a professor of medicine at the University of Alberta.

“The public health messages are not telling you that obesity is a consequence of depression, addiction disorders, sleep problems, stress levels and the hundreds of other reasons you can think of that are actually driving obesity,” says Sharma, scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network.

“The stereotype is that if you are motivated enough you can do this, and if you can’t do this, you’re a failure and you need to be penalized. That is the attitude we often take in this discussion — it’s not the attitude that is supported by the science, and yet that’s the messaging you see in public health announcements,” Sharma says. “We’ve essentially said, ‘It’s your problem.'”

Toronto summit to weigh the social strains of obesity discrimination

While studying hormone receptors in laboratory mice, researchers at Mayo Clinics campus in Florida and Washington University School of Medicine identified a new molecular player responsible for the regulation of appetite and metabolism.

The authors report that mice engineered not to express the lipoprotein receptor LRP1, in the brains hypothalamus, began to eat uncontrollably, growing obese as well as lethargic.

They found that LRP1, a major transporter of lipids and proteins into brain cells, is a “co-receptor” with the leptin receptor – meaning that both the leptin and LRP1 receptors need to work together to transmit leptin signals.Leptin decides whether fat should be stored or used, resulting in lethargy or energy. When working properly, the hormone, which is made when body cells take in fat from food, travels to the brain to tamp down appetite.

New findings may lead to a novel treatment for obesity – Oneindia News

A first-of-its-kind dating website for people ‘larger than life’ has come up in Britain, that also says slim people ‘need not apply’.

Around 1,000 people flocked to the site – FunPie.co.uk – in the first 12 hours of its opening in the first week of January.

The self-confessed dating site for ‘large folk’ invited people with ‘natural curves’ to join up to ‘share some big love’, The Sun reported.

Now, a dating website for fat people!

Money stresses in countries like the UK and US could explain their higher obesity levels, compared with countries such as Norway and Sweden.

The study, in Economic and Human Biology, compared obesity in 11 affluent countries from 1994 to 2004.

Taking into account research into animal behaviour which shows that animals increase their food intake when faced with uncertainty, the Oxford researchers believed that stress could be a factor in causing people to overeat.

The study found that the more market-liberal countries stand out as having high levels of obesity – one-third more obesity on average – and higher rates of obesity growth

BBC News – Obesity linked to money insecurity in affluent nations