Let's Do to Big Food What We Did to Big Tobacco

Obesity 'accounts for nearly a tenth' of health-care spending

(NEWSER) - There’s an “elephant in the room” when it comes to health care reform: American health care costs a bundle in large part because we’re so fat, writes Michael Pollan for the New York Times. President Obama has touched on the issue, but the country hasn’t, and that’s because the food industry is “even more powerful” than health insurers. More»

David Lazarus: It's time to stop the obesity epidemic

(NEWSER) - The obesity news just keeps getting worse, the latest example being the study warning that 4 in 10 American adults could be obese in less than 20 years. "Americans eat too damn much," writes David Lazarus in the Los Angeles Times . And though it may be distasteful to get government involved in our dinners, it's become necessary: It's clear that "millions of Americans can't be trusted to look after their own well-being," while everybody else gets stuck with their health bills. More»

Get ready for sticker shock, as nutrition info hits menus

(NEWSER) - Thanks to new laws, calorie counting is back in vogue and bigger than ever, writes the New York Times. After decades of diets that focused on the balance of fat, protein, and carbs, “More and more, people are looking at calories in, and calories out,” a doc tells the Times. Chain restaurants in New York are now required to print the calorie content of dishes next to prices, and the harsh truth is prompting some menu changes. More»

(NEWSER) - New research takes an accepted truth about obese people and flips it upside down: They may, in fact, get less pleasure out of eating than people of normal weight, the LA Times reports. Researchers found that people who have weaker reward circuitry in the brain tend to overeat. Thus, while a person of average weight can eat one cookie and feel satisfied, an obese person keeps eating more to try to capture that feeling, the Times explains. More»

Cereal giant plans voluntary nutrition, marketing changes

(NEWSER) - Averting a threatened lawsuit, Kellogg will reformulate its cereals and snack foods to make them more nutritious—or keep them as is and stop targeting advertising at children under 12. The plan affects about half of the company's offerings, meaning that fans of Pop-Tarts and Rice Krispies may be getting a little healthier whether they want to or not. More»