Doctors and health officials have relied for decades on body mass index (BMI), a ratio of height to weight, to categorize people as overweight and obese. A new study, however, suggests the use of BMI may be leading us to underestimate the already sky-high obesity rate. BMI, the researchers say, is an overly simplistic measure that often misrepresents physical fitness and overall health, especially among old ...

A new animal study suggests that a genetic mutation could put certain people at higher risk for becoming obese if they eat high-fat diets. At the moment, the practical uses of the research seem to be limited, but physicians could conceivably test people for the mutation and recommend that they avoid certain kinds of diets, said study co-author Dr. Gozoh Tsujimoto, a professor at Kyoto University's departmen ...

Parents and caregivers should be involved in treatment programs for obese children and should lead by example, praise children's progress and use setbacks as learning opportunities, experts say. "In many cases, the adults in a family may be the most effective change agents to help obese children attain and maintain a healthier weight," Myles Faith, an associate professor of nutrition at the Gillings School ...

America's obesity epidemic is proving to be as stubborn as those maddening love handles, and shows no sign of reversing course. More than one-third of adults and almost 17 percent of children were obese in 2009-2010, echoing results since 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. "It's good that we didn't see increases. On the other hand, we didn't see any decreases in any group ...

Progress in the fight against obesity, heart disease, and several other public-health scourges all but ground to a halt in the past year, although as usual a person’s chances of being in good health varied widely by location, according to the latest state-by-state rankings of the nation’s health. As they have in the past, northeastern states dominated the top of the rankings, while states in the southeaster ...

People with depression are more likely to have a stroke than their mentally healthy peers, and their strokes are more likely to be fatal, according to a new analysis published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Depression is a relatively minor risk factor for stroke compared to high blood pressure (hypertension) and other health conditions and behaviors that damage blood vessels, ...

Missing out on deep sleep can leave you feeling slow-witted and irritable in the morning, but the consequences don’t necessarily end there. Over time, too little deep sleep may also take a toll on your heart by contributing to high blood pressure, a new study suggests. Healthy young and middle-aged adults spend about 20% to 25% of their sleeping hours in the stages known as slow-wave sleep (so called becaus ...

Smoking will increase your risk of cancer, emphysema, heart disease, stroke, and dying young, but if you manage to dodge all those bullets, it may actually reduce your need for joint-replacement surgery later in life. Curious as it may sound, a new study of nearly 11,000 older men in Australia has found that the longer the men smoked, the less likely they were to undergo surgery to replace hips and knees da ...

A fat dog is not necessarily a happy dog. In fact, his health may be at serious risk, and he may even grow depressed. There are many reasons why pets become obese but the two main reasons are: Eating too much and not getting exercise enough. As long as a medium-sized dog is no more than a few pounds over its optimal body weight, there may be no cause for concern. But if the extra weight amounts to more than ...

Diabetes stemming from pregnancy can cause a host of problems for baby and mother alike, including birth complications and a higher risk of developing the more serious type 2 diabetes later in life. In a new study, researchers say they’ve identified a series of routine health measures that can help doctors predict years in advance which women will develop pregnancy-related diabetes, paving the way for lifes ...