How will the obesity epidemic end? With kids.
Part 6 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic. Each of the children in Betty McNear's home day care has a paper cup with their name neatly written on it and a green bean or pepper plant sprouting inside. The preschoolers help set the lunch table and clean up afterward, eating a "rainbow" of foods in between. They study their colors with tomatoes and blueberries and learn to share by preparing a meal to feed everyone. McNear's approach at My Nana T
New drugs and surgery can deliver major weight loss. But they come at a cost.
Part 5 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic. For two decades, Charleah Torres-Vega, 43, refused to donate her favorite dress – a blue strapless number – hoping it would someday fit again. After giving birth to her fourth child, the 5-foot-4 Boston resident weighed 236 pounds, or 62 pounds above the cutoff for clinical obesity. "It was a shocking number and also very frustrating," she said. For decades, medicine has had little to offer people suc
Americans don't choose to be fat. Many live within a 'system they don't control.'
Part 4 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic. Nathaniel Louis Brown always loved his food, especially spaghetti and potatoes. On a typical night, he would eat three dinner-plates full. On holidays, Brown, 64, served himself on a platter. He knew he should cut back, but he didn't have anyone who cared enough to tell him to eat less. Plus, food helped him curb life’s stresses and his constant worry. Then came the heart attack. Brown's life is far f
What we eat matters. Researchers are still searching for the 'best' diet.
Part 3 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic. Campaigns to cut fat and then sugar from America's diet didn't make a dent in the obesity epidemic. Nor did keto or paleo, Atkins, exercise plans or a TV reality show. Kevin Hall knows, because he has studied all of them at the National Institutes of Health, where he has worked for 19 years. Hall considers it his mission to help people live healthier lives through food. He has seen study participants
Extra weight increases health risk in the long run. Fat shaming hurts now.
art 2 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic. Tigress Osborn is fat, and she's OK with that. What she's not OK with is how she and others with excess weight are treated as if they're lazy, stupid and sick. "We consider fat a part of human body diversity," said Osborn, chair of the nonprofit National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. She insists on using the word "fat" rather than the more politically correct "person with obesity," which she b
Obesity was long considered a personal failing. Science shows it's not.
Part 1 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic. Barbara Hiebel carries 137 pounds on her 5-foot-11 frame. Most of her life she weighed 200 pounds more. For decades she tried every diet that came along. With each failure to lose the extra weight or keep it off, her shame magnified. In 2009, Hiebel opted for gastric bypass surgery because she had "nothing left in the gas tank" to keep fighting. She quickly dropped 200 pounds and felt better than she
Can you improve memory? Brain stimulation could make a 'moderate to large' difference, study shows.
(Photo: Robert Reinhart) For four consecutive days, 150 senior citizens pulled on a swim-like cap and allowed parts of their brain to be bathed with low-dose electrical pulses. During 20-minute sessions, they were given five lists of 20 words each and asked to recall them. In some, the oscillations were directed to an area of the brain known to be involved in short-term memory, where a just-learned phone number would be stored. They were tested to see how many recently-mentio
