Obesity - Scientific American

Obese people have higher risks for diabetes, heart disease, arthritis--and injuries in car accidents? Yes, in part because they’re far less likely to wear a seat belt . That’s the finding of a study out of the University of Buffalo that will be presented at an upcoming meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in Chicago.

In a world full of mirrors, what I’m about to tell you may be a surprise. But many overweight people do not know they’re obese. They underestimate their weight, according to a study in the journal Body Image .

It's springtime, and that means mud pies, bug bites and scraped knees--if you're a preschooler. Or at least it used to.

Have you already abandoned your New Year’s resolution? No need to feel ashamed. Fully a quarter of the people who make resolutions give up by the end of the first week , with many others falling off the wagon in the months to come. It seems to be human nature to aim high and fall short.

The human body harbors at least 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells. Collectively known as the microbiome, this community may play a role in regulating one's risk of obesity, asthma and allergies. Now some researchers are wondering if the microbiome may have a part in an even more crucial process: mate selection and, ultimately, evolution.

Americans still fall short of the recommended daily portions of fruits and vegetables. And kids are notoriously averse to veggies at the school cafeteria. So researchers tested whether visual cues of healthful foods could increase consumption at a grade school with 800 students.

When public health officials fret about the soaring incidence of diabetes in the U.S. and worldwide, they are generally referring to type 2 diabetes. About 90 percent of the nearly 350 million people around the world who have diabetes suffer from the type 2 form of the illness, which mostly starts causing problems in the 40s and 50s and is tied to the stress that extra pounds place on the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose. About 25 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, and another million have type 1 diabetes, which typically strikes in childhood and can be controlled only with daily doses of insulin.