Entries tagged as Obesity

Weight-Bearing Exercise Does Not Prevent Increased Bone Turnover During Weight Loss

On March 12, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity / No Comments

While there are many benefits of losing weight, weight reduction also might negatively affect bones in the body. During weight loss, bones are being remodeled – breaking down old bone and forming new bone – at an accelerated rate. As a result, bone density is reduced, causing increased fragility. In a new study, University of Missouri researchers found that weight-bearing exercise, in this case, fast walking or jogging, did not prevent the increased bone turnover caused by weight loss. (read the full story)

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Overweight Middle-Aged Adults Are At Greater Risk For Cognitive Decline In Later Life

On March 11, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity / No Comments

The adverse affects of being overweight are not limited to physical function but also extend to neurological function, according to research in the latest issue of the Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological and Medical Sciences (Volume 65A, Number 1). The publication presents a collection of ten articles highlighting new findings related to obesity in older persons. (read the full story)

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Obesity Associated With Depression And Vice Versa

On March 9, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Depression, Obesity / No Comments

Obesity appears to be associated with an increased risk of depression, and depression also appears associated with an increased risk of developing obesity, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. “Both depression and obesity are widely spread problems with major public health implications,” the authors write as background information in the article. (read the full story)

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Researcher Finds That Exercise Counters Negative Effects Of Weight Regain

On March 8, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity / No Comments

With the obesity rate rising for American adults and children, health concerns such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease are a frequent reality. Although obesity itself is a major risk factor for disease, most of the threat may be associated with a cluster of risk factors called the metabolic syndrome (MetS). Losing weight can improve health and reduce these risk factors, but many people have difficulty keeping the weight off. Now, University of Missouri researchers have found that exercising during weight regain can maintain improvements in metabolic health and disease risk. (read the full story)

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Most Parents Do Not Realize That Their 4 or 5 Year-Olds Are Overweight Or Obese

On February 9, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity / No Comments

Half of the mothers who took part in a study thought that their obese four or five year-old was normal weight, as did 39% of the fathers, according to the February issue of Acta Paediatrica. When it came to overweight children, 75% of mothers and 77% of fathers thought that their child was normal weight. More than 800 parents of 439 children took part in the study, carried out by researchers from the University Medical Centre Groningen in The Netherlands. 5% of the children were overweight, 4% were obese, and the rest were normal weight. Check the end of this review for a link to download this article for free. (continue reading)

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Fast Food Menus With Calorie Information Lead To Lower Calorie Selections For Young Children

On February 7, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity, Public Health / No Comments

In a new study, the amount of calories selected by parents for their child’s hypothetical meal at McDonald’s restaurants were reduced by an average of 102 calories when the menus clearly showed the calories for each item. This is the first study to suggest that labeled menus may lead to significantly reduced calorie intake in fast food restaurant meals purchased for children. (continue reading)

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Obesity Now Poses As Great A Threat To Quality Of Life As Smoking

On January 7, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity, Public Health, Tobacco / No Comments

As the US population becomes increasingly obese while smoking rates continue to decline, obesity has become an equal, if not greater, contributor to the burden of disease and shortening of healthy life in comparison to smoking. In an article published in the February 2010 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers from Columbia University and The City College of New York calculate that the Quality-Adjusted Life Years lost due to obesity is now equal to, if not greater than, those lost due to smoking, both modifiable risk factors. (continue reading)

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Psychotherapy Offers Obesity Prevention For ‘At Risk’ Teenage Girls

On December 29, 2009 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity, Psychotherapy / No Comments

A team of scientists at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the National Institutes of Health have piloted psychotherapy treatment to prevent excessive weight gain in teenager girls deemed ‘at risk’ for obesity. The study, published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, found that girls who participated in Interpersonal Psychotherapy may be better able to prevent their body mass index, or BMI, from increasing over the course of a year compared to girls who took traditional health education classes. (more…)

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Obesity Reduces Human Life Expectancy By 3-10 Years

On March 22, 2009 / By Chris Fisher / In Obesity, Public Health / No Comments

belly_fatThe research arm of the University of Oxford* reports that even moderate levels of obesity can significantly reduce one’s life span. In the largest ever study of the effects of obesity on mortality, researchers analyzed 57 studies that tracked approximately 900,000 participants for an average of 10-15 years. The results will appear in a future volume of The Lancet. Body mass index, or BMI, was used to assess participant obesity. One in 9 (or 100,000) persons died during the study period. Moderate obesity was defined as a BMI of 30-35, and severe obesity as a BMI of 40-50. (more…)

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Obesity – #1 Childhood Health Concern In 2008

On July 22, 2008 / By Chris Fisher / In Depression, Obesity, Public Health / No Comments

potato-chipsA national poll conducted by C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital’s National Poll on Children’s Health suggests that obesity problems are not limited to adults. In fact, childhood obesity came in at #1 in their poll, bumping smoking and drug abuse from the top spots a year ago. (more…)

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