Get High to Lose Weight: Study

Experts weigh in on whether reality show has gone too far

(NEWSER) - The Biggest Loser is getting bigger each year: Next season, 526-pound Michael Ventrella will be the show’s largest contestant ever. Though wanting to help people shed pounds is a good thing, the show seems exploitative when it uses “heaviest ever” to promote itself. PopEater rounds up media experts’ thoughts.

• Matthew Greenberg, True/Slant: “Of course NBC and Biggest Loser are exploiting the contestants. All reality programming is, at some level, based on exploitation.”

Man had gone on TV to ask nation for assistance in solving his weight problem

(AP) - A bedridden 990-pound man who had appealed on Mexican television for help tackling his weight problem has died of heart failure, AP reports. Emergency officials had to knock down Jose Luis Garza's bedroom wall and hoist him onto the back of a friend's pickup truck to take him to the hospital. The 47-year-old man was pronounced dead on arrival, and was buried yesterday. More»

Keeping weight off made much tougher by brain, hormone cues to get it back

(NEWSER) - Your body doesn't want you to lose weight, scientists say, and makes it tough to keep off pounds lost. Scientists tell the Los Angeles Times that brain and hormone cues increase post-diet as natural processes try to get that old figure back. And while research into the heavy issues is still ongoing, exercise and medications are seen to help. More»

Studies don't support connection between working out and slimming down

(NEWSER) - The idea that exercise is the key to shedding pounds is relatively modern—and a whole lot of hogwash, Gary Taubes argues in New York magazine. Though the theory that working out makes us lose weight has been around since the 1960s, scientific research has consistently shown that the relationship between weight and exercise is spurious. More»

The truth may not set you free—but it might make your pants looser

(NEWSER) - Nutritionist Joy Bauer, the "Today" show's diet editor, looks at some popular dieting myths—or are they?

1. Diet and exercise can transform fat into muscle: The one can't become the other.
2. Metabolism slows with age, and there's nothing you can do about it: Exercise can maintain your burn.