Advice on how to lose weight weighs heavily on us. Wherever we turn, we hear, see or read the depressing message that our health will suffer if we don't trim down. Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke -- all are grim consequences of surplus pounds. Some experts have even...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a 19th century poet, was not thinking about food when she began her sonnet, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Yet these words could very well describe the American love affair with food, a passionate relationship that has resulted in the massive spread...

Fast food is frequently blamed for the rise in obesity across the nation. Although a causal relationship between fast food and surplus pounds in adults has yet to be established, one study clearly linked the rise of childhood obesity with the rise in children's fast-food consumption. According to the study...

By 2020, four out of five of your friends, coworkers, family members and neighbors will be overweight or obese, and half of them will be diabetic or prediabetic.

Less than 5 percent of Americans enjoy ideal cardiovascular health, and today's teens will...

If you've resolved to lose weight and get fit in 2012, you're in good company. Losing weight consistently tops the list of resolutions for the new year. And for a good reason: The link between expanding waistlines and increasing medical problems is well established. Even worse, more of us are...

If you gave a test to a million people and three-quarters of them flunked, would you attribute their failure to a lack of willpower or laziness? Or would you wonder if the test was flawed?

If the test measured the ability to lose weight, the results would parallel the failure...

Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy ignited Americans with his vision of sending a man to the moon within one decade. Skeptics considered the challenge impossible to achieve until reality intervened. On July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong stepped outside Apollo 11 and took a...

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's refusal to apologize for introducing state-mandated healthcare insurance while governor of Massachusetts may doom his chances to head the 2012 Republican party ticket. Moreover, the fractious issue is unlikely to go away since most Americans are (or will be) financially impacted by government-mandated medical...

In the unending and increasingly urgent quest for weight loss, we Americans have an abundance of diets to choose from. Faddish diets come and go so fast we can barely learn their formulas. From glorifying particular foods (like the acai berry) to demonizing others (like high-fructose corn syrup) diet promoters...

When is the last time someone challenged you to examine a cherished opinion or viewpoint? This comes close to describing my conversation with Dr. Jennifer Lovejoy, president of the Obesity Society, a clearheaded thinker whose insights are shifting attitudes and shaping future policies about obesity.

One out of two Americans will require treatment for diabetes or prediabetes-at an annual cost of $3.35 trillion-less than 10 years from now, according to a report issued by UnitedHealth Group. Will the rising cost of medical care, whether paid individually or collectively through government, trigger a change...

What's your reason for getting fit and dropping a few pounds? Like Ashton Kutcher, are you worried about a "massive world-crushing event" where only the fittest survive? Or are your concerns more immediate, such as an oversized number on the scale and a thinning wallet?

Nearly 75...

When overweight celebrities like Drew Carey, John Goodman and Jennifer Hudson make headlines by losing (collectively) nearly 300 pounds, you realize how the social norm on weight has shifted. Being overweight, even 100 pounds overweight, does not trigger public discussion, but bringing one's weight...

What do the movie "Inception," NFL Monday Night Football and the book "Blink" have in common?

All explore the emerging insights into the architecture of the mind--more specifically, the impact of priming. Priming refers to the subliminal messages our minds absorb at the...

We're fat and it's killing us, according to the American Cancer Society. Yet every cloud has a silver lining. Case in point: experts suggest that the rising rate of obesity will translate into shorter life spans, which in turn will keep the Social Security system solvent. But what...

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, a reality television program, surprised critics with its higher-than-expected ratings when it premiered against the NCAA basketball finals and a popular food show on Friday, March 26. Even more surprising, the show's audience continued to grow, and over half a million people...

First Lady Michelle Obama has announced her intent to make children's health a national priority. She, like many health experts, is alarmed that obesity in children has tripled in the last 30 years and that one-third of today's children are overweight. Left unchecked, childhood obesity can...

Innovation in the prevention of disease―not improved treatment―will be the key factor in realizing affordable healthcare.

The emerging shift in paradigms is the result of maddening increases in medical insurance expenses over the past decade. From 1999 to 2008, medical insurance costs for a family of four increased

Losing weight and getting fit preoccupied Americans in 2009:

• Nearly one out of two American women, including high school girls, were on a diet.

• Over 40 billion was spent on branded diet plans.

• Children as young as 9 to 11 years...

Americans are falling into three gaps that threaten personal health and national solvency. Unless we reverse the trend, 43 percent of Americans will be overweight or obese by 2018, and the nation will spend $344 billion to address health-related problems.

The fat gap, a term coined by British...