Nearly a third of us are overweight, and some of the worst rates of obesity are in the developing world. All this corpulence takes a huge economic toll.
SugarScience, a website created by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, distills the findings of 8,000 scientific studies on the health effects of sugar. The takeaway? Eat less.
A 65 percent increase in a woman's weight is associated with a 9-percent drop in earnings. A recent study investigated what's behind that "obesity penalty," and why it hits women harder than men.
Many cities and states have tried, but Berkeley, Calif., is the first to pass a penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. The goal is to reduce sugar consumption to improve public health.
Voters will decide on a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks in Berkeley and a 2-cent-per-ounce tax in San Francisco. But the soda industry's lobbying group has spent millions blasting the measures.
Liz Paul has struggled with her weight for years. A diet group helps, but it only meets once a week. So she has turned to social media for daily feedback and support. Studies find it can help.
People who have lost significant weight are uneasy about revealing that in online dating profiles, because obesity is often judged as a moral failing. Research shows they have good reason to worry.
Are you more an apple or a pear? If it's the former, you've got company. Americans' waistlines are growing, even though obesity rates have plateaued. And more belly fat increases health risks.
If obesity were a disease, would you be more likely to seek medical help because insurance would pay for treatment? Or would you feel stigmatized and just give up? That's the debate surrounding increased efforts to classify obesity as a disease.
Lean people tend to have many more kinds of intestinal bacteria than obese people. Having too few species, regardless of your weight, appears to increase the risk for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.