Maybe they are at their wits end, but some parents have decided to take legal action. With childhood obesity rates going through the roof, some parents think that desperate measures need to be taken. Which may explain why last month, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) served McDonald’s with a notice of intent to sue if the fast food restaurant continues to promote Happy Meals with toys.

According to CSPI’s letter of intent, they are basing the potential lawsuit on the fact, they believe, McDonald’s is using toys to market to small children in a deceptive manner under the consumer protection laws in a number of states, including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, and the District of Columbia.

The letter, in part, states that “McDonald’s practices are predatory and wrong” and “illegal, because marketing to kids under eight is inherently deceptive, because young kids are not developmentally advanced enough to understand the persuasive intent of marketing.”

In the McDonald’s rebuttal, Vice President of Communications for McDonald’s USA William Whitman says: “We are proud of our Happy Meal, which gives our customers wholesome food and toys of the highest quality and safety. Getting a toy is just one part of a fun, family experience at McDonald’s.”

“I’m on a very strict healthy pop star diet. I don’t eat bread, just vegetables and salad and fish. Eating like that is much better for me anyway, but on Sundays I sometimes eat pasta,” the singer revealed.

So, even someone known for her excesses (at least in the wardrobe department) can even exercise a little moderation.

While on the road, Lady Gaga uses the celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak to plan her diet and fitness regimen. It’s a part of Pasternak’s 5-Factor Fitness routine that is popular with other pop stars, such as Miley Cyrus. Lady Gaga uses a dumbbell and barbell combo, and the following simple routine:

• A five-minute warm-up

• Three exercises that target different areas of the body

• Five more minutes skipping rope

• Eat healthy foods

(via: Celebritydietdaily.com)

The study’s authors don’t think it’s happened by accident.

“We believe improvements in targeting risk factors are in part responsible,” says the study’s senior author, Dr. Alan Go, M.D., the assistant director for clinical research at Kaiser Permanente, in Oakland, California. “We’ve observed in our population that fewer people are smoking, and there’s better control of blood pressure and cholesterol.”

The improvements may have included a decrease in smoking rates, and better control of blood pressure and cholesterol levels. This included the use of medications, such as beta-blockers, cholesterol-lowering statins, and aspirin.

Keep in mind that those who were studied, 46,086 heart attack patients in all, were considered “haves,” as in people who were employed and with insurance.

During the 10-year period of the study, they found that people who met recommended blood pressure levels doubled, and those with healthy levels of LDL (bad cholesterol), rose from 67 percent to 73 percent.

The authors of the study believe that the study highlights one of the major needs in health care reform. The American health care system is largely “reactionary,” said Jeremiah Brown, Ph.D., of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, in Lebanon, New Hampshire. “We do an excellent job of treating heart attacks and a relatively poor job of prevention.”

(via: CNN)

For those of us who have been fans of John Goodman, including his underrated work in film, it’s a wonder that he hasn’t fallen in the footsteps of other overweight entertainers to an early grave.

Now he is 57 years old, and losing weight. Better late than never.

Goodman has finally made a move to get his weight down.He was recently spotted on the red carpet for a Los Angeles awards ceremony honoring director Mike Nichols, he surprised the public with a much thinner frame.

Most of the details over his weight loss are just speculation, as there hasn’t been any official explanation. His publicist is quoted as saying he did it with “diet and exercise,” which isn’t much of a revelation.

Only rumors have put Goodman at around 400 pounds before he began to lose weight. And it’s the same speculation that has put his weight loss at about 100 pounds in a few short months.

Brown fat helps keep newborns warm, and while it was known to exist in adults, it’s more prevalent in adults than previously thought. The importance to this finding is that brown fat burns calories faster than regular fat.

Researchers reported in three studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine that they found brown fat in most adults. They found that they can detect it by exposing people to cold. In some cases, adults who had more active areas of brown fat were thinner.

“Fifty grams of maximally activated brown fat accounts for 20 percent of your resting energy expenditure,” say lead researcher Dr. Aaron Cypress of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. “If you add that up, that’s 400 or 500 calories per day.”

In a separate but supportive study in the Netherlands, a team at Maastricht University Medical Center found that obese men have less brown fat that lean men.

Now the tough part: scientists have to find a way to activate the brown fat. There are other uncertainties as well, including whether that would even do the job. But at least there’s hope for positive findings in the future.

“Using brown fat to treat obesity has been talked about for 30 or 40 years,” he said. “But people essentially gave up on it. Many said it didn’t exist in adult human beings and many said it didn’t have any connection to obesity and weight at all. What these studies show is that virtually every adult human being has functional brown fat in them.

(via: Yahoo)

Recent research supports the positive effects of short workouts. Real Age spotlights a new study that not only supports this, but how it can help you metabolize sugar properly.

Well then, it’s good to know we have experts looking out for us, isn’t it? Obviously, most skiers don’t use helmets, so it’s good as a suggestion. But we don’t need to know why, do we?

Just Being Overweight Can Shorten Lifespan: Study

(To see what this award is all about, and the other stories that made the grade, click here.)