Let’s Move: White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report to the President
Obese people who have weight-loss surgery gain at least six years of health benefits that include fewer diabetes cases and lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Even so, their medical costs didn’t drop.
A new study indicates 12 states have an obesity rate higher than 30 percent.
More than 70% of large employers will cover weight-loss surgery in 2013 — a rate similar to past years, according to a survey by the National Business Group on Health.
Among obese veterans, bariatric surgery — predominantly gastric bypass — was not associated with lower healthcare expenditures in the 3 years after the operation, researchers found.
US regulators approve first new prescription weight-loss drug in more than a decade
Doctors should check weight and height for all patients to determine if they’re obese and refer them to intensive diet and exercise programs if necessary, according to new guidelines from a U.S. government-backed panel.
The percentage of U.S. adults who are obese appears to have plateaued.
Obesity rates largely leveled off in the U.S. a decade ago, suggesting the worst might have been over. But about one-third of Americans are still obese, and a new study out Monday predicts that percentage will climb to 42% by 2030.
Study: Obesity adds $190 billion in health costs
Experts say deep, complex causes of obesity may be beyond reach of weight loss drugs
FDA Tells Weight-Loss Surgery Centers To Pull Misleading Ads
Number of the Week: The Economics of Obesity
Medicare for obesity help sparks debate – 72% of providers lack training in weight loss
The U.S. Medicare program for the elderly will cover counseling for obesity in an effort to reduce the condition that has reached epidemic proportions and leads to serious health problems.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder plans to direct doctors in Michigan to begin monitoring the body weight of their young patients and provide the data to a new state registry, in one of the most extensive government efforts to address the growing problem of pediatric obesity
About three of every four Americans will be overweight or obese by 2020.
Medicare could save billions of dollars if people who were pre-diabetic or at risk for cardiovascular disease took part in community-based weight-loss programs, a study finds
Weight Watchers Helps Obese Lose More Than Doctors’ Treatment in Study
Obesity is sweeping into low and middle-income countries, reports the World Health Organization’s obesity center, creating a dual problem of unhealthy weight gain in some segments of a country’s population, and malnutrition in others.
U.S. Rejects Mayor’s Plan to Ban Use of Food Stamps to Buy Soda
As the obesity epidemic balloons, physicians like Urquhart are reducing their regular practices, or leaving them altogether, to open money-making weight loss clinics.
Adult obesity rates increased in 16 states in the past year and did not decline in any state
Arizona’s governor on Thursday proposed levying a $50 fee on some enrollees in the state’s cash-starved Medicaid program, including obese people who don’t follow a doctor-supervised slimming regimen and smokers.
Obesity Problems Fuel Rapid Surge Of Type 2 Diabetes Among Children
Fat State Stretched Thin: Tenn. Covers Gastric Bypass
FDA Clears Allergan’s Lap-Band For the Less Obese
Americans grew fatter at a faster pace than residents of any other wealthy nation since 1980, during a period when obesity worldwide nearly doubled, researchers found.
The study finds that those who are overweight and obese in the U.S. and Canada cost $300 billion a year, a result of increased need for medical care, as well as loss of economic productivity due to death and disability
Allergan Inc.’s stomach-shrinking Lap-Band won a favorable vote from a federal advisory panel Friday, showing how surgery rather than drugs is increasingly gaining favor as a treatment for obesity
Weight-loss surgery, once a last resort for extremely overweight people, may soon become an option for those who are less heavy.
People who are overweight are often counseled by their physicians to lose the extra pounds. But does such advice do any good? A new study suggests that it depends on the way it is offered.
The medical costs of obesity are twice as high as previously reported, according to the first study to estimate the causal effects of obesity on U.S. medical costs.
Without more trips to the gym or a serious shedding of those extra pounds, up to one-third of American adults are on the way to becoming diabetic by 2050.
Women pay more than men for haircuts and dry cleaning. Now, a new study has found that they also pay more for being obese.
Being dramatically overweight isn’t just unhealthy and socially inhibiting: It’s expensive – a study coming estimates the overall cost of obesity at $8,365 a year for obese women and $6,518 a year for obese men
Medical evidence drives coverage decisions and data about what works for obesity is definitely an evolving area
During the past two decades, the adult population in the US has become not only far more heavy but far more expensive when it comes to providing healthcare coverage, according to a new CBO issue brief
Two new devices—one that deflates fat cells, one that destroys them—have just been cleared for “body contouring” in doctors’ offices by the FDA
WHY are Americans getting fatter and fatter? The simple explanation is that we eat too much junk food and spend too much time in front of screens
Diabetics who undergo weight-loss surgery need fewer medications to control the condition and have lower health-care costs after the procedure, a study found.
Americans are continuing to get fatter and fatter, with obesity rates reaching 30 percent or more in nine states last year, as opposed to only three states in 2007
“There is no such thing as a drug with no side effects. But when it comes to obesity, the risk/benefit ratio is so skewed to the risk side in the FDA’s decision that it makes it very difficult for any obesity drug to get through”
In spite of high unemployment numbers, there’s a lot of fat in the workplace—and it’s costing a bundle
A panel of federal health experts dealt a surprising setback Thursday to a highly anticipated anti-obesity pill from Vivus Inc., saying the drug’s side effects outweigh its ability to help patients lose weight.
Dieters, doctors and investors get their first extensive look at the first of a trio of new weight loss drugs this week
A recent analysis by the North Carolina-based nonprofit RTI International found that gastric bypass and banding are cost-effective methods of reducing complications and death in obese people with diabetes
Hospitals have renovated facilities and purchased specialized medical products ranging from blood pressure cuffs to commodes to post-mortem bags to handle their largest patients
White House Task Force report on Childhood Obesity lays out 70 recommendations and a gentle warning that, while the federal government can’t solve the obesity epidemic, it is prepared to take action where others don’t
Overeating is more fattening for people who have a close relative with diabetes, a study found.
The morbidly obese—that is to say those with a BMI of more than 40, have increased in America by more than six times since 1960, and three times since 1990. They are now about 6% of adults.
Obesity is associated to so many expensive diseases that the costs of treating the impoverished obese is unlikely to make this sector more employable, and therefore will not have an economic benefit
It seems incredible, but these are the facts: As of 2005, at least 9 million young adults — 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24 — were too overweight to serve in the military, according to the Army’s analysis of national data
Santa Clara County passed an ordinance banning restaurants from giving out toys with meals of more than 485 calories.
Vita Advisors, LLC is a research-based strategic advisory firm serving the health care industry.
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