Anew computerised device that tracks portion size and how fast people eat is more successful in helping obese children and adolescents lose weight than standard treatments, according to research led by the University of Bristol and published on bmj.com today.
People need to eat, like to eat and are programmed to eat. Australian neuroscientists took these truths to be self-evident before embarking on a radically new direction in weight loss research.
Current drug-based weight loss therapies try to stop the brain from sending hunger signals to the body. These therapies tend to be fairly ineffective, researchers reasoned, so why not reverse the approach and stop the body from receiving signals from the brain? So that’s what they did, and it worked. In mice at least. [continue reading…]
The BBC News Magazine sheds some insight into the abuse that fat people are subject to in the feature article Why are fat people abused?
“You big fat pig” is all Marsha Coupe heard before she was kicked in the stomach and punched in the face.
The 53-year-old businesswoman says she was sitting in an almost empty train carriage in the early evening when she was kicked, punched and shouted at for taking up two seats.
Her attacker was pulled off by another passenger and restrained, but got off at the next stop before the police arrived.
It might surprise some people that the person doing the kicking and punching was a middle-aged woman, who was also travelling alone. But it might not stun those who are already significantly overweight.
Source: BBC News Magazine
A study of 4254 Canadian schoolchildren has shown a direct association between BMI and satisfaction with their body shape. The research, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, shows a linear response for girls, who were happiest when thinnest, and a U-shaped response for boys, who were unhappy when they were too skinny or too fat. [continue reading…]
