Gut Bacteria Can Make You Fat

Holidays, relationships, and quitting smoking among the dangers

(NEWSER) - With Americans continuing to get bigger and bigger , we need all the help we can get to stay healthy—so the Daily Beast offers a warning on 15 things that might cause you to pack on the pounds:

• Holiday season: With all the food, stress, and booze associated with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, the holidays account for 51% of all weight gained during the year.
• Quitting smoking: Men are especially at risk here, with an 8% chance of adding more than 28 pounds after giving up tobacco. Women get off easier, with just a 6% chance.

US must get a handle on public health crisis

(NEWSER) - A widespread vice has a negative effect on Americans' health, and it's up to the government to do something about it. That approach worked for tobacco, David Lazarus writes for the LA Times , and it can work for obesity, too. "The answer seems obvious," he argues. "If we want to protect ourselves from a deadly epidemic of heart disease, diabetes and other ailments, just as we've taken steps to protect ourselves from an epidemic of lung cancer, we need to act." More»

But so are all those Big Macs

(NEWSER) - Your ill-considered Cheetos-and-bacon diet isn’t the only reason you’re fat. Scientists believe that advanced networks of bacteria and other microbes in our intestines and colons have an incredible influence on obesity, the LA Times reports. These 10 to 100 trillion little guys work together almost like an organ, determining, among other things, how many calories we absorb and whether we make or burn fat. More»

(NEWSER) - Overweight kids eat more when they eat with their overweight friends, Newsweek reports. A new study tested a child's consumption of healthy snacks and junk food while in the company of a friend or stranger who was either fat or lean. Overweight kids eating with a chubby buddy ate more unhealthy calories than any other pairing. More»

New fleet of books tries to explain American obesity

(NEWSER) - As the waistlines of Americans continue to expand, so is the genre of literature seeking to explain why, Elizabeth Kolbert writes in the New Yorker, profiling no fewer than seven books on the subject—including one that endorses “fat power.” The Fat Studies Reader argues that the real problem isn’t obesity, but societal hysteria founded by a deep-seated contempt for the corpulent. More»