Weight screenings in high school were not enough to get overweight and obese kids on track toward a healthier weight, a recent U.S. study found.

With obesity rates soaring among Arkansas teenagers, the state implemented a screening program in schools in 2003, with alerts sent to parents of kids with weight problems. But kids screened by the program in early high school and again in their junior and senior years did not seem to benefit compared to kids exempt from screening, the study found.

While the screening and reporting measures in Arkansas have been both popular and controversial, there is no evidence to support their use, said study author Kevin Gee of the University of California, Davis School of Education, in email to Reuters Health.

Rates of teenage obesity have more than quadrupled in the last 30 years and now more than one in five teens is obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: Screening teens for obesity may not help them lose weight | Fox News

Scientists have discovered that obese people can imagine smells more vividly than those who are slim.

They believe differences in our ability to dream up odours – especially those that whet the appetite – may play a role in food cravings.

Previous research has shown that food cravings occur more often in obese individuals.

Researchers theorised that having a vivid imagination when it comes to smell may intensify desire for food by conjuring stronger thoughts of flavours and aromas.

People are known to vary greatly in their ability to imagine smells of all kinds, whether it be baked bread, chocolate or the sweet scent of roses.

In the study, volunteers completed a series of questionnaires that asked them to imagine both visual and odour cues and then rate their vividness.

Participants with a higher body mass index (BMI) reported a greater ability to imagine both food and non-food odours vividly.

Lead scientist Dr Barkha Patel, from Yale School of Medicine in the US, said: “These findings highlight the need for a more individualistic approach in identifying factors that may increase risk for weight gain.”

Source: Sense of smell linked to obesity

The true cost of an unhealthy lifestyle of little exercise, poor diet and smoking has been quantified by scientists who found that it can reduce lifespan by 23 years.

People who develop largely preventable conditions like heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes are cutting their life short by decades, a 50 year study has shown.

It is estimated that around 80 per cent of cases could be prevented by keeping weight under control, exercising more, eating a healthy diet, and not smoking or drinking too much.

For a man in his 40s, suffering from all three conditions reduces life by 23 years. It means that a 40-year-old’s life expectacy would drop from 78 to just 55. Likewise someone in their 60s could lose 15 years, meaning a 60-year-old man might have just three years of life left.

The cost is far greater than smoking, which is thought to limit lifespan by 10 years.

“We showed that having a combination of diabetes and heart disease is associated with a substantially lower life expectancy,” says Dr Emanuele Di Angelantonio from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge

Source: Unhealthy lifestyle can knock 23 years off lifespan

A new study may have some important ramifications for beach season: Just because a food promotes fitness does not make it good for the waistline.

That was the basic finding of a recent study published in the Journal of Marketing Research. The analysis found that people who were chronically concerned about their weight and ate fitness-branded foods actually ended up eating more and working out less.

The report’s findings may come as something of a shock to health-conscious consumers, many of whom spend a king’s ransom at places like Whole Foods just to feed their dietary wants. Meanwhile, the study suggests there may be an inverse correlation between how people eat and how much they work out.

Source: Eating ‘healthy’ food may not make you fit: Study

There were plenty of tasty tidbits packed into the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report that came out back in February.

As we reported, the panel of nutrition experts that wrote the report said it was OK to eat an egg a day. The scientific evidence now shows it won’t raise the amount of LDL cholesterol – the bad kind of cholesterol — in your blood or raise the risk of heart disease.

The panel, which advises the government on how to update the Dietary Guidelines every five years, also pushed the envelope a bit by recommending a plant-focused diet — not only because it promotes health, but because it’s also more environmentally sustainable.

But as two leading nutrition researchers argue in an opinion piece out this week in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, there was another, even more important recommendation in the committee’s report that’s largely been overlooked: It’s all about fat.

For many years, the government has put a cap on how much fat we consume – recommending that we get only 20 to 35 percent of our daily calories from this nutrient.

What the new report advised instead was to “put the emphasis on optimizing types of dietary fat and not reducing total fat.” The advice to limit total fat to prevent obesity was also gutted.

This is a subtle but powerful change, Dariush Mozaffarian and David Ludwig write: “With these quiet statements, the DGAC report reversed nearly four decades of nutrition policy that placed priority on reducing total fat consumption throughout the population.”

Fat Thanks to Sona S. for the tip!

Source: Farewell, Low-Fat: Why Scientists Applaud Lifting A Ban On Fat : The Salt : NPR

Thanks to Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, salad may soon be added to the list of government-enshrined responsibilities.  Yes, salad.

The Salad Bars in Schools Expansion Act, which was introduced by the Ohio congressman last week, aims to increase fruit and vegetable consumption by school-age children. It would create a grant program to install salad bars in public schools across the nation.

This, the congressman says, would be the “easiest” and most “effective” way to meet the new nutrition standards of the USDA for schoolchildren. Instead of merely hoping that kids will pick up a pre-packaged salad and not chicken nuggets, a salad bar would give them the opportunity to load their plates with foods they enjoy — that is, assuming they enjoy eating salad. And assuming no food fights ensue.

There could be worse ideas. And unlike First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative, there are no strings attached. Schools would apply for grants. Those selected would be chosen on a “competitive basis,” with priority given to schools having “not less than 50 percent of the students [who] are eligible for free or reduced lunches,” schools in “food deserts,” or schools that “already provide nutrition education to students.”

Source: Ohio Congressman Pushes Salad Bars in Schools | The Weekly Standard

Atlanta, Ga. (CBS ATLANTA) — The average American woman now weighs as much as the average American man weighed in 1960.

Both U.S. men and women have been packing on the pounds since 1960, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that the average American woman now weighs 166.2 pounds – nearly identical to what American men weighed in the 1960s. And U.S. men have expanded greatly in the same time period, having gained nearly 30 pounds from the 1960s to 2010 – 166.3 pounds to 195.5 pounds today.

The CDC data shows that both sexes have gained almost an inch in height from the 1960s, which factors into some of the overall weight gain. But women have seen an 18.5 percent increase in weight gain from 1960 and men have shown a 17.6 percent increase in overall weight gain.

Today’s American male weighs nearly as much as 1.5 American females from the 1960s, with today’s U.S. male weighing an average 195.5 pounds and having a nearly 40-inch waist circumference (39.7 inches).

American women today have an average waist circumference of 37.5 inches and weigh in at 166.2 pounds, up from about 140 pounds in 1960.

Source: CDC: Average American Woman Now Weighs As Much As 1960s US Man « CBS Atlanta

Hawaii residents were the least likely to be obese in 2014, and Hawaii was the only state where fewer than one in five residents are obese.

Mississippi had the highest obesity rate in the nation for the second year in a row, at 35.2%.

Mississippi and West Virginia have had the two highest obesity rates in the nation since 2012. Five states on the list have had consistently high obesity rates — Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky. These states have been among the 10 states with the highest obesity rates every year since Gallup and Healthways began tracking obesity in 2008.

On the other end of the scale, Colorado has consistently had one of the two lowest obesity rates each year since 2008. In addition to Colorado, three states — California, Massachusetts and Connecticut — have been among the 10 states with the lowest obesity rates since 2008.

Source: Obesity Rate Lowest in Hawaii, Highest in Mississippi

A Taylor Swift fan is unveiling his new body after losing over 400lbs in just two years.Ronnie Brower of Syracuse, New York, had ballooned up to 675lbs by 2012 as the result of ‘excessive drinking, eating, and pill-popping all his life.’

Now, due to hard work, and even harder workouts, over the past two years, Brower has reached his goal weight.

Brower says he listened to Taylor Swift (above) music as he worked towards his goal of weighing 250lbs, which he accomplished last month.

Brower will be celebrating his new weight in a big way as well, by taking a trip to see Swift perform in Cleveland on June 3 – and hopefully meeting the singing superstar. It was Swift after all, and her music, that kept Brower going during his weight loss journey.

Source: Taylor Swift’s ‘biggest fan’ unveils dramatic 400lbs weight loss | Daily Mail Online

Scientists believe that light at night, including street light creeping through the curtains and the glow of smartphones, is causing us to pile on the pounds.

Light at night, including street light creeping through the curtains and the glow of smartphones, is making us gain weight, according to new research

In experiments on mice, they showed that animals exposed to light 24-hours a day for five weeks put on 50 per cent more fat than creatures who kept more normal hours.

This was despite all the animals eating the same amount of food and doing the same amount of exercise.

Tests showed that constant light disrupted their body clock and slowed down a vital calorie-burning process.

A previous study by the same team from Leiden University showed that animals kept in constant light put on weight more quickly than creatures fed fatty food.

Researcher Patrick Rensen, Leiden University Medical Center, said he believes his findings have relevance to people who are battling the bulge.

He said ‘I think it would be really helpful to maintain the biological rhythms as much as possible, by at least sleeping in a darkened bedroom.’

Being exposed to light at night disrupts the body clock and slows down a vital calorie-burning process

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he said that even something as simple as checking a mobile phone for messages on waking during the night could stop the body clock from resetting properly in the morning and lead to weight gain.

With exposure to light at night linked to a host of other ills, from cancer to depression, experts say we need to learn to love the dark.

Speaking recently, Richard Stevens, a breast cancer researcher from the US, said: ‘The importance of sleep has finally entered mainstream thinking and practice; however the importance of dark is still greatly under-appreciated.’

via Is your BEDROOM making you fat? | Daily Mail Online.