Free Republic

This story is not satire. According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and awarded to a Boston hospital for more than $1.5 million, some mysterious phenomenon is covertly making lesbians obese, in apparent violation of the dietary laws of cause and effect. For now, I'm calling this phenomenon "obesity gremlins," and here's how a NIH-funded study describes this extraordinary mystery: It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women. So let me get...

Scientists have finally figured out how the key gene tied to obesity makes people fat, a major discovery that could open the door to an entirely new approach to the problem beyond diet and exercise. The work solves a big mystery: Since 2007, researchers have known that a gene called FTO was related to obesity, but they didn’t know how, and could not tie it to appetite or other known factors. Now experiments reveal that a faulty version of the gene causes energy from food to be stored as fat rather than burned. Genetic tinkering in mice and on human...

(CNSNews.com) – During a “voters first presidential forum” in New Hampshire on Monday, GOP presidential candidate Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran, saying he “declared war on trans fats and a ceasefire with the largest state-sanctioned sponsor of terrorism.” “This is a bad deal. He’s declared war on trans fats and a ceasefire with the largest state-sanctioned sponsor of terrorism,” said Jindal regarding the nuclear deal with Iran. As CNSNews.com previously reported, the Food and Drug Administration ruled in June that trans fat is not “generally recognized as safe” for use in food and gave...

On Friday, even the hosts of NBC’s Today had enough of Michelle Obama’s effort to micro-manage people’s food choices as they mocked the First Lady’s attempt to create a healthy version of s’mores. At the top of the 9 a.m. ET hour, co-host Willie Geist explained: “So the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, and the USDA have teamed up for this program called ChooseMyPlate.gov. It's an initiative proposing a makeover, for among other things, this classic campfire treat. So instead of graham crackers with chocolate and marshmallow, they propose graham crackers with, want-wa, strawberries and low-fat yogurt.”...

Since a lot of people talk about various personal health issues here for a number of reasons, I wanted to pass along two documentaries I watched recently and thought have good information for people to review. First, is one called "Fat Head". It is done by a science writer that basically refutes the "Supersize Me" documentary. It discusses how a high carb, low fat and protein diet is the cause of obesity in America, and it's exactly what the government and health groups are demanding people follow to "get healthy". It gives an excellent easy understanding of why this does...

(CNSNews.com)-- The School Nutrition Association (SNA), which represents 55,000 school nutritionists nationwide, is pointing to data published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to draw awareness to the fact that “after 30 years of steady growth in the National School Lunch Program, student participation is abruptly down in 49 states."The nutritionists attribute the drop to new nutrition standards that were instituted by USDA in 2012.Total national participation in the School Lunch Program peaked in 2010 and 2011 at 31.8 million, according to USDA. In 2012, it was 31.7 million. But in 2013, it dropped by 1 million participants, to 30.7...

I read the headline over at the Washington Post (via Newsalert) and I can’t say I was surprised: The average American woman weighs 166.2 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As reddit recently pointed out, that’s almost exactly as much as the average American man weighed in the early 1960s.Men, you’re not looking too hot in this scenario either. Over the same time period you gained nearly 30 pounds, from 166.3 in the 60s to 195.5 today. Doing the same comparison as above, today’s American man weighs almost as much as 1.5 American women from...

Characteristics passed between generations are not decided solely by DNA, but can be brought about by other material in cells, new research shows. Scientists studied proteins found in cells, known as histones, which are not part of the genetic code, but act as spools around which DNA is wound. Histones are known to control whether or not genes are switched on. Researchers found that naturally occurring changes to these proteins, which affect how they control genes, can be sustained from one generation to the next and so influence which traits are passed on. The finding demonstrates for the first time...

Scientists now know that our DNA is being altered all the time by environment, lifestyle and traumatic events. Genetic faults caused by trauma, poor lifestyle or environmental stress can be passed down to future generations, scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered. Previously large studies have shown that devastating events such as famine can scar future generations, making them more prone to obesity and diabetes. However it is the first time that the biological mechanism for the effect has been seen. Although the same genes are passed down through generations, scientists now know that our DNA is being altered...

henever Republicans talk about trimming the federal food stamp program, Democrats decry them as cold, heartless or worse. But new research shows that cutting food stamps could actually make the country healthier. The U.S. Department of Agriculture looked at data from 2007 through 2010, then compared average weights of those on food stamps — officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — to those who weren't.

The team at Oxon Epidemiology and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analysed medical records from 1,958,191 people aged 55, on average, for up to two decades. Their most conservative analysis showed underweight people had a 39% greater risk of dementia compared with being a healthy weight. But those who were overweight had an 18% reduction in dementia - and the figure was 24% for the obese. "Yes, it is a surprise," said lead researcher Dr Nawab Qizilbash. He told the BBC News website: "The controversial side is the observation that overweight and obese people have a lower...

Apparently, parents should visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) website to find out how to teach their children good eating habits.The agency in charge of the country’s agricultural sector is now in the nanny business, thanks to First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity, which links to choosemyplate.gov on its website.In the kids’ section of My Plate, advice is dished out on how parents can help pre-schoolers “develop healthy eating habits,” including a warning about praising an empty plate.“Avoid praising a clean plate,” the website states. “Your child should stop eating when he or she...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is promoting a giant full-body exhibit for kids to walk through to promote healthy eating habits.While encouraging schools to apply for nearly $6 million in grants to help them comply with the First Lady Michelle Obama-promoted Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act new lunch standards, the USDA highlighted efforts by the Kansas State Department of Education.“Body Venture, a traveling health education exhibit sponsored by Kansas State Department of Education travels to schools to teach students about nutrition and physical activity,” the USDA said in a blog post Friday.Body Venture is a 45-foot by 50-foot exhibit that starts...

Celebrate with me the recent lesson learned by the city council of Los Angeles after a 7-years-long experiment in nanny statism that ended in utter failure. A public health report released in early 2007 showed that South Los Angeles residents were significantly more obese than those in the remainder of the city, including adults and children, and the data showed a dramatic increase from a similar report from a decade earlier. Furthermore, occurrence of obesity-related illness, such as diabetes, was more present in the area and also showed an increase. The city council decided that something needed to be done....

A 2008 ban on new fast-food restaurants in South L.A. has failed to cut the obesity rate, a Rand study saysSeven years ago, Los Angeles made national headlines with a novel attempt to reduce obesity in South L.A. by banning new fast-food restaurants. But a new study found the effort has not achieved its intended goal. A Rand Corp. report released Thursday says that from 2007 to 2012, the percentage of people who were overweight or obese increased everywhere in L.A., but the increase was significantly greater in areas covered by the fast-food ordinance, including Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park.The...

A much-hailed law that restricted the opening of new stand-alone fast-food restaurants in one of the poorest sections of Los Angeles did not curb obesity or improve diets, a new study found. City lawmakers passed the zoning ordinance in 2008 that limited the opening or expansion of fast-food outlets in a 32-square-mile area south of Interstate 10 that struggles with high obesity rates and other health problems. The law, believed to be the first effort of its kind by a major city to improve public health, did not ban new eateries in strip malls. The research by the Rand Corp....

Not healthier than Western foodBian Huawei, head nutritionist at The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, said that it was a common misconception that Chinese food was healthier than Western food. In a November 2013 tencent.com report, Bian noted that although traditional Chinese food uses fewer animal fats compared to most Western dishes, many Chinese restaurants nowadays use excessive quantities of oil and salt to make dishes more flavorful. "Most cooking methods used in Chinese cuisine, such as deep-frying and roasting, use an excessive amount of oil," said Bian. "Even for the dishes that are cooked in a healthier...

Passengers on the South West Train service from Basingstoke to London Waterloo were left in shock after an announcer took to the tannoy to say that fat people should remain standing because of lack of space, the Daily Mail reports. On the packed commuter service, a member of staff reportedly said: “We are going to be like sardines on this train, so can I ask that only slim people sit on the three-seaters. If you are fat then it is simply not going to work.” One passenger was left furious by the announcement, saying: “I am not necessarily a big...

The federal government helped finance the creation of a so-called “diet choker” that monitors the eating habits of the wearer.WearSens, created by engineers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), is a necklace that can automatically detect when a person is eating or smoking, and can send alerts to a smart phone telling the user to stop.The invention received a $148,379 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2013 to create a sensory necklace to “fill the need of automatically detecting swallows and eating patterns.”Researchers at UCLA, led by Majid Sarrafzadeh, the director of the Embedded and Reconfigurable...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Obama said Thursday that the U.S. has undergone a “culture change” in the five years since she started raising awareness about childhood obesity, but as she celebrated achievements on multiple fronts the first lady also warned that the progress is “incredibly fragile.” That’s because special interests “whose first priority is not our kids’ health” are “waiting for us to get complacent or bored and move on to the next trendy issue,” Mrs. Obama said at an annual health summit. She cited the fight over a recent child nutrition law as an example.