I'm sure everyone remembers the recent headlines of the 42-year old woman in New Jersey, Donna Simpson, who is attempting to become the fattest women on earth. While she currently weighs ~600lbs she is hoping to crack 1000lbs eventually. Apparently her boyfriend is supporting the initiative, although her little child is too young to voice an opinion. In order to feed her habit, she raises money through her website which allows random men to watch her eat excessively. While this certainly sounds a bit nutty, and goes against grain of the prevailing dieting culture of Western society, gainers…
While we regularly post lengthy discussions on Obesity Panacea, there are many research updates, news stories, videos, etc. in the field of obesity, physical activity and nutrition that we come across on a daily basis that never grace the pages of the blog. Most of these mini-stories we share with our followers on Twitter, and we encourage those of you with active Twitter accounts to communicate with us there to get real-time updates of all the stuff we are discussing (Follow Peter and/or Follow Travis). For those of you who shy away from Twitter, enjoy below the best mini-stories that…
Apologies for the lack of posts the past few days - the workload at school has been very high for both of us this week.  In honour of this weekend's Boston Marathon, below is an interview I conducted last year with former Boston Marathon Champion and prolific writer Amby Burfoot. Amby is a fascinating guy and extremely knowledgeable about running and physiology in general, and it was a real pleasure to be able to ask him a few questions. My girlfriend and I competed in our first Boston Marathon last year, and if you're curious to know what it was like, be sure to check out my lead-up post, or…
Given that I have put myself out of commission due to a musculoskeletal injury I acquired over the weekend, I thought a discussion of joint injuries and such would be most appropriate in my Robaxocet induced state. Just last week Travis discussed the issue of injuries associated with exercise among obese individuals. In that post, based on recent evidence, Travis concluded: "...in overweight and obese individuals, exercise (in the form of walking) has little or no association with injury or illness." However, there still remains the issue of various musculo-skeletal problems which appear to…
While we regularly post lengthy discussions on Obesity Panacea, there are many research updates, news stories, videos, etc. in the field of obesity, physical activity and nutrition that we come across on a daily basis that never grace the pages of the blog. Most of these mini-stories we share with our followers on Twitter, and we encourage those of you with active Twitter accounts to communicate with us there to get real-time updates of all the stuff we are discussing (Follow Peter and/or Follow Travis). For those of you who shy away from Twitter, enjoy below the best mini-stories that…
 Image by Randy Son of Robert. I love simple physical activity interventions.  We all know that physical activity is a good thing, and yet it can be really difficult for people to increase their physical activity levels, especially over the long-term.  So it's exciting whenever any intervention is shown to be effective, but even more so when it is simple.  And an intervention that is both simple and inexpensive is pure gold.  I wrote about one such intervention a few weeks ago, when I described a British study that showed that simply painting lines on a school-yard playground resulted in a…
 Image by Jespahjoy. Just before moving to our new home here on Scienceblogs, I asked our readers for ideas on what types of content they would like to see here on Obesity Panacea.  One topic that came up several times was the issue of injuries.  I'm not sure why we haven't discussed injuries in the past (aside from the fact that it's not the focus of our research), but it was a great idea, and I've come across a study on the topic that I think will be of real interest.  The study is titled "The influence of exercise and BMI on injuries and illnesses in overweight and obese individuals: a…
Given that today is April 2nd, directly following April Fool's, it seems like an ideal time to bring up the treadmill bike - a odd piece of exercise equipment which appears to be legit, but could very well be a hoax. So what is a treadmill bike? It's rather self-explanatory, really - "a treadmill on wheels." And what's the point of this gadget, you might ask? According to the company selling the product, Bicycle Forest: "Have you ever wished you could get a quality treadmill workout without paying expensive gym prices? Look no further than the Treadmill Bike by the Bicycle Forest. The…
 Image by Jeff Keen. In the past few years several prominent researchers have argued for the adoption of taxes on junk food as a means of reducing their consumption.  Often, as in a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, the argument is made that money collected through the tax could then be used to subsidize healthier foods.  This is an idea that I've found very appealing - we make the bad foods more expensive, the good foods less expensive, and people will probably shift at least some of their purchases to those healthier options.  But a very interesting new study by…
Nope, not even close, although I doubt it will stop big food from marketing Activia yogurt and others as a solution for expanded waistlines. According to the World Health Organization, probiotics are: "Live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host". Over the past few years there has been a huge surge in the addition of specific probiotic cultures into various fermented milk products, such as yogurt. For the most part the marketing push behind these products has focused on the potential for regulating digestive function (i.e. Jaime Lee…
While we regularly post lengthy discussions on Obesity Panacea, there are many research updates, news stories, videos, etc. in the field of obesity, physical activity and nutrition that we come across on a daily basis that never grace the pages of the blog. Most of these mini-stories we share with our followers on Twitter, and we encourage those of you with active Twitter accounts to communicate with us there to get real-time updates of all the stuff we are discussing (Follow Peter and/or Follow Travis). For those of you who shy away from Twitter, enjoy below the best mini-stories that…
Well, in fairness, Jesus' twelve Apostles should also share in the blame. An incredibly quirky and yet fascinating study was just published in the International Journal of Obesity which investigated the size of the food and plates that have been depicted in paintings of Jesus' Last Supper over the last 1000 years. The trend of gradually increasing portion sizes is well documented; just go to your local McDonalds and order a large drink and fries and drive yourself directly to the nearby hospital for a bypass. Thus, Wansink & Wansink (maybe a married couple) decided to directly compare…
Over the next few months, Peter and I will be re-posting some of our favourite posts from our Obesity Panacea archives.  The following article was originally posted on December 2, 2009. Image by Mike Baird. There is a surprising amount of controversy about the ability of physical activity to prevent the development of obesity. Sure, obese individuals tend to perform less physical activity than their lean counterparts, but that doesn't prove causation. And almost every week it seems that there is a news story reporting that the obesity epidemic is caused by diet. Period. If you believe…
In his post last Friday, Peter did a very nice job of introducing the the counter-intuitive idea that having too little fat, rather than too much, causes many of the metabolic problems of obesity.  Today I thought it would be good to continue on with this theme and to focus on some of the mechanisms that explain this strange relationship.  Let's begin where Peter ended off: Currently, the emerging theory of why obesity is associated with metabolic disease risk suggests that it is not the excess amount of fat that results in problems - but rather, it is the inability of the fat tissue (…
While we regularly post lengthy discussions on Obesity Panacea, there are many research updates, news stories, videos, etc. in the field of obesity, physical activity and nutrition that we come across on a daily basis that never grace the pages of the blog. Most of these mini-stories we share with our followers on Twitter, and we encourage those of you with active Twitter accounts to communicate with us there to get real-time updates of all the stuff we are discussing (Follow Peter and/or Follow Travis). For those of you who shy away from Twitter, enjoy below the best mini-stories that…
That's right - contrary to what many religiously believe, it is the inability to grow more fat during times of energy surpluss, rather than the excess of fat which appears to directly contribute to the metabolic consequence often associated with obesity. A recent article in the New Scientist shines some light on this issue; Obesity kills, everyone knows that. But is it possible that we've been looking at the problem in the wrong way? It seems getting fatter may be part of your body's defense against the worst effects of unhealthy eating, rather than their direct cause. While the article…
 Image by Duchamp. In most developed nations, kids get far less physical activity than they did just a few generations ago.  Given the strong links between physical inactivity and health risk (and given that we're now seeing "adult" diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes in children and teenagers), this has become a very real public health concern.  Unfortunately, when it comes to increasing childhood physical activity levels, people often want to reinvent the wheel.  For example, many people are enthralled with the Nintendo Wii as a means of increasing childhood physical…
The current recommendations from major health organizations stipulate that if an individual has a BMI in the obese range (>30 kg/m2), they should be counseled to lose at least 5-10% of their body weight. This advice appears to make some sense given that increasing body weight is generally associated with heightened risk of various diseases, and that reduction of body weight usually improves levels of risk factors for disease (e.g blood pressure, triglycerides, etc). However, the literature has been much more complicated in terms of the effect of weight loss on risk of early mortality.…
Nathan Lau's Chocolate Haupia Pie This entry for the Scienceblogs Pi Day Pie Contest was sent to us by reader Nathan Lau of the House of Annie food blog.  It is a chocolate haupia pie, which Nathan describes as a "Hawaiian-style coconut milk-based pudding".  He has the full recipe and step-by-step instructions and pictures on his website and it looks absolutely delicious!   We're hoping to take a final crack at making a pie of our own later this afternoon, and I'll update this post with some pictures if we get it done before the end of the day.  To see all of the current pie contest…
While we regularly post lengthy discussions on Obesity Panacea, there are many research updates, news stories, videos, etc. in the field of obesity, physical activity and nutrition that we come across on a daily basis that never grace the pages of the blog. Most of these mini-stories we share with our followers on Twitter, and we encourage those of you with active Twitter accounts to communicate with us there to get real-time updates of all the stuff we are discussing (Follow Peter and/or Follow Travis). For those of you who shy away from Twitter, enjoy below the best mini-stories that we…