Essentially, both groups lost an average of 33 pounds in the first 16 weeks. The difference came in the second 16 weeks. By the end of the 32 weeks, those who skipped the dessert regained an average of 22 pounds. Those who were in the dessert-eating group continued weight loss and shed an average 15 pounds more. In the end, the dessert group lost an average of 40 more pounds more than the others.

The layman’s explanation is simple. The people who abstained from sweets experienced more cravings throughout the day and gave into the cravings more often. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it is also when our appetite is smallest. So if you get your metabolism jump started early and eat that snack first, you have all day to burn it and you won’t be distracted by your cravings.

Keeping extra weight off long term is one of the biggest challenges. This finding could be a key component to helping people eat a steady balanced diet. If you combine this type of strategy with some moderate exercise, weight loss doesn’t have to be a mystery equation. Eat light at night and have sweets early in the day.

Let’s see what the reaction is on Twitter:

I’m here to serve … cake. MT @Cljohnst: Cake for breakfast? To lose weight? Thanks @gangrey for brightening my day. tampabay.com/news/health/re…

— Ben Montgomery (@gangrey) February 9, 2012

Yay! I have an essay in here! MT @avilandie: advanced reading copies of Wedding Cake for Breakfast arrived-gorgeous! twitter.com/avilandie/stat…

— Kristen Weber (@kristenwEditor) February 9, 2012

[new post] I made King Cake Cupcakes. And had one for breakfast today. j.mp/zKjRb1

— Shawnda (@foodiebride) February 9, 2012

It sounds like people are happy with the idea so far. Speaking of Twitter, I just read an article where a man had the idea to use Twitter to track his diet progress. The main gist is that, at first he was inspired by his idea, but he quickly became embarrassed by his late-night fatty food feasts and long periods of inactivity on Twitter do to his shameful diet.

As his tweets will reveal, he persisted and did lose weight. One thing that struck me about his story is how others began to tweet their diets to him. They would share tales of high calorie meals and compare weight loss secrets.

Here’s a brief chronology of his work with the Twitter diet:

Last nite: asparagus sted of fries, but too much alcohol. Today: fruit; then sushi, little bit of soy sauce, 1 cookie sted of usual 3.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter25) March 4, 2010

Until last month, I sometimes ordered 2 melts, 2 hash browns — 88% of day’s fat, 100% of saturated fat — for breakfast. Disturbing.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter25) April 28, 2010

In exactly two months, I have dropped 25 pounds. Now, my new goal: to lose 25 more pounds by my 25th birthday, 9/3.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter25) May 3, 2010

I started this Twitter feed at 270 pounds. I think I maxed out between 275 and 280. But now I’m at 220. I’d like to be under 200.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter25) June 28, 2010

The results of a preliminary study—these are for deciding whether something needs further, more wide scale testing—show that knowledge-based work, or work that is mentally taxing, contributes to obesity. While that sounds like it might be obvious—if you’re thinking and not moving, you’re not burning calories—the reasons cited in the study are not: When you have to think really hard, it screws up your insulin levels and you eat more.

It’s perfectly natural (sort of) that Michael Phelps consumes and burns 12,000 calories daily. Physical activity, anybody who’s done it knows, will make you hungry. You burn it off with more physical activity.

Knowledged-based activity, though, like sitting at a computer and performing tasks, also makes you hungry, but if your job involves sitting while you do that heavy thinking, there’s nothing to burn off the calories you might consume to assuage the hunger.

In short, thinking can make you fat because the brain relies on sugars to operate. Taxing the brain, then, sends out the signal more sugar is needed, hence what the researchers called “spontaneous energy intake” leading to fluctuating glucose and insulin levels.

Yikes, right?

That’s one explanation, anyway. The other is that mental work leads to the production of cortisol, the stress hormone that annoying woman on TV talked about after asking if you had too much fat on your belly and thighs.

The results of the study were published in Psychosomatic Magazine by several scholars, all with Ph.D. trailing behind their names. They grabbed a little more than a dozen women from Laval University (adjusting for menstrual cycles) and tested the effects of different tasks on their hunger levels. A couple of hours after breakfast, some were given the task to relax, others to summarize some text, and others to perform a challenging computer task. The scientists also took blood samples to analyze, and each student performed each of the tasks on three different days.

After the tasks, the students were given access to a buffet and their food intake was monitored. They found that the students who performed the summarizing task ate on average 848 kiloJoules more food than the students relaxing, and those who performed the challenging computer task ate 1057 kJ more.

Sigh. Thinking makes you fat. No wonder.

Just remember, though, this study was preliminary with a small sample of women.

But still…

This, coupled with that silly New York Times article about blogging leading to cardiac arrest should make you think twice about skipping out on exercise, which is still the only way to really combat it. It’s especially bad news in the wake of another discovery that carbs actually kill appetite control cells in the brain, making those older than 25 overeat.

You could say Atkins was right about carbs, but where will you get that sugar for thinking? I guess that settles it. Better hit the jogging trail, huh? 

The CDD got together with American University to research the extent to which online marketing is contributing to childhood obesity and the health problems that come with it.

Neither of them liked the conclusion: food marketers are bombarding young people with encouragement to eat high-calorie, low nutrient foods all the time through every medium available – instant messaging, online gaming, avatars, etc.

This of course means the amoral world of marketing is making kids fat and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) needs to set rules for food messages aimed at kids.

On one side of the grocery aisle are kids screaming at their parents for Fruit Loops because bagels and yogurt just won’t do. They want Fruit Loops because Toucan Sam (or whoever the mascot is nowadays) told them they want it – that and sugar’s awesome.

So, from their standpoint (the parents with plugged-in kids throwing hissy-fits around every nutritious corner), that’s a problem – especially when Junior’s getting stuck in the tire swing.

(Oops, I forgot, kids don’t go outside anymore, the little pale-faced glowworms. That’s part of the problem with digital age, kids won’t risk the sun damage long enough to let the parents have some quality time…Do you really think four-leaf clovers are lucky for the kids? Nope, lucky for their parents who finally got the kids onto an impossible mission. You’re unlucky if they find one too soon.)

It’s easy to understand the parents’ frustration. It really is hard to tell those cute little monsters no. Let’s review how my Mom did it – because Lord knows what a beautiful, sweet child I was. Must have been terribly difficult to deny me of those little childhood pleasures.

But she found a way. And she found a way often. Eventually all it took was a look and a snap and I dropped that cookie right back in the jar. And I knew that if I didn’t drop the cookie back in the jar, then the snap would turn into a slap.

Some parents say that’s child abuse, but only the ones with fat kids.

So we’re at an impasse then, it seems. Parents are kinder and gentler these days. Childhood and adult obesity is an increasingly huge (pun intended) problem in the US. We don’t work on farms anymore; we work at desks and eat as if we’re still field hands. And all that tasty, cheap, low-quality food is always spinning in high definition around us.

But really? You really think the answer is regulating marketers trying to sell their products? It’s not like they’re selling rat poison. They’re selling junk food to soft parents. Should that be against the law? Kids don’t have any money, right?

Forget that for a minute, it’s an all-day sucker. Maybe, if we’re going to get the government involved in something, we should find a way to make healthy food cheaper. Little Debbie cakes are 35 cents each. Double cheeseburgers are $1.

Why do you think West Virginia’s one of the fattest states in the Union? Because healthy food cost three times as much. Hmmm. Grilled tilapia or Whopper Jr. for lunch? If you’re making $6 per hour, you’re picking the Whopper.

In Japan, fatty, sweet food is way more expensive than the opposite – though they’re adopting American ways more and more. But finding a fat person in Japan is like trying to find something at an American grocery store without high fructose corn syrup.

So, don’t you think that before we ask the government to pound the marketers into their places, we should look into other ways to address the problem? Granted, since pharmaceuticals were allowed to advertise on TV, the cost of prescription drugs has skyrocketed, which means regulation is sometimes necessary.

(Hint, hint – And instead of all this universal health care talk, while we’re on a tangent, why not instead put that tax money to paying the citizens’ insurance bill. That’s all the hospitals care about anyway.)
 
Instead of slapping the hands of the marketers, slap the hands of the kids reaching for the cookies. Instead of punishing a valid trade, provide encouragement and make it easier to eat healthy. Instead of pretending to be angry at the oil companies for price gouging so you’re constituents think you’re really working for them, how about a tax break at the pump?

Oh wait, now I’m really dreaming, aren’t I?

Comparing the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey and the 2002 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, annual spending on obesity-related illness increased from $3.6 billion to $36.5 billion.

This number required 11.6% of all private healthcare spending, compared to only two percent in 1987, driving up insurance premiums all over the country, according to the article published in Health Affairs.

Lead author of the study, Emory University’s Kenneth Thorpe, says that obesity should be given the same level of concern from the public as smoking has gotten.

“We need to have the same type of societal attention on this issue that we gave to smoking 20 years ago,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe attributes the increase in spending to two factors: the increase in diseases related to obesity, such as adult on-set diabetes (type 2), high blood pressure, upper gastrointestinal disorders, high blood sugar, high cholesterol; and the rising cost of per-patient care.

Looking only at privately insured adults aged 18-64, the survey scanned spending on the top 20 health conditions.

“We found overwhelmingly that the rise in private insurance spending was traced to the fact that we were treating more and more people with a variety of chronic health conditions,” Thorpe said.

The bulk of spending seemed to rest the obese. In 2001, the privately insured overweight cost insurance companies an additional $1,244 per person than those of healthier weights. In 1987, the gap was only $272.

Doubling the 1987 number, 15.5% of obese adults (30 or more pounds overweight) were treated for six or more medical conditions. Twenty-five percent of the extremely obese (80 pounds or more overweight) were being treated for six or more medical conditions.

Type 2 diabetes showed the most dramatic increase. Treatment of adult-onset diabetes increased by 64% between 1987 and 2001.

Almost a third of Americans are obese and Thorpe says more needs to be done to curb a growing epidemic in health-related matters, nipping them in the bud instead of only addressing the cost issues.

“Most of what is going on now to try to control health care spending is missing the target,” Thorpe says. “Companies are tweaking co-pays and talking about health care savings accounts when really they need to redirect their focus to reduce the prevalence of obesity among children and workers.”