The signals from our brain that tell us we’re full do not appear to work properly in obese children. This is the outcome of a study that is due to be presented at the Endocrine Society’s 99th annual meeting. The study used images of high-calorie foods and measured the brain activity of obese children after a meal, compared to their normal weight counterparts. Using a technique called...Read More
A group of MPs have urged the government that more must be done to reduce the number of multi-buy offers on unhealthy foods to help curb childhood obesity. Further to this, they say that rules on junk food advertising must get more stringent and clear, claiming that the current obesity plan set forth by the government is too vague. The British government announced a childhood obesity plan in...Read More
A new study published in JAMA has found increased rates of cerebral palsy in children whose mothers are overweight or obese. The study was conducted in Sweden and analysed data from 1,423,929 children born between 1997 and 2012. In total, 3,029 children were diagnosed with cerebral palsy during this time, and it was found that increasing BMI was associated with an increased reporting of...Read More
Researchers from the University of Delaware have found that rapid weight gain in a child’s first six months could be a risk factor for obesity in later life. The researchers stated that nearly 10 percent of infants were considered ‘high weight for length’ and were keen to examine how infants could achieve a healthy weight as they enter childhood. It has been shown before that breastfeeding...Read More
An international team of scientists have identified a genomic variant which predisposes Africans and African-Americans to obesity. Many genomic studies thus far have focused on Europeans, whilst across the USA, African-Americans have the highest age-adjusted rates for obesity. The researchers used a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to investigate this, as well as the genomic effects in...Read More
Recently, evolutionary biologists have been looking into how changes in diet have led to human adaptations to genes that regulate fat metabolism. There are two essential genes that regulate the synthesis of vital fatty acids, fatty acid desaturase 1 and 2 (FADS 1 and 2). They change dietary fats into components for use in the heart and brain. Previously, scientists have shown that the FADS...Read More
A new study led by the University of North Carolina has found that terms such as ‘no fat’ and ‘no sugar’ give consumers a false sense of confidence when purchasing such items, in fact they rarely reflect the actual nutritional quality of the food. The researchers found that foods with the ‘low fat’ or ‘low sugar’ claims often had a worse nutritional profile than those without. It was found...Read More