Former FDA head David Kessler’s much-lauded book The End of Overeating discusses in detail the use of technology by the food industry to provide the maximum caloric/fat bang for the consumer’s buck. And nowhere is this more beautifully illustrated than in the following video, an unusually candid inside look at the making of pork rinds. Which are hardly an example of healthy food (and we’re using the word “food” liberally). Fried pig skin squares, anyone?

We already knew that a diet based on junk food is bad for people and crows. Now a study shows that the health of cockroaches also suffers when the critters eat an unbalanced diet.

In fact, roaches fed a poor-quality diet matured more slowly and were fatter than those fed a well-balanced one. Females who ate badly also were less willing to mate than their well-nourished peers. LiveScience reports:

[Researchers] picked young female cockroach nymphs and divided them into two dietary groups. Half were fed a good-quality balanced diet of protein-rich fish food and high-carbohydrate oatmeal, while the rest were raised on fish food only. Both groups were allowed to eat as much as they wanted….When the nymphs became adults, the team switched the diets of some animals.

Half of the cockroaches raised with good quality diet lost their oatmeal, while half of the bugs fed poorly were promoted to a good-quality diet. Eighteen days after the switch, the diet control ended and some of the surviving cockroaches were dissected. The effects of unbalanced meals continued throughout the cockroaches’ lives, even for the few that were switched to good-quality food.

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In reality Chris Pine’s character in Star Trek might well have looked more like Seinfeld’s George Costanza—that is, if the makers of the sci-fi flick had considered the fact that long-term space travel is likely to make a person look fat and ugly.

Besides food and water, humans need gravity in order to look normal—without it, our muscles would wither away, our bones wouldn’t develop properly, and our faces would become bloated. According to astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell at the University College London, when a person is in space for an extended amount of time, fluids that are normally kept in the lower limbs start to accumulate in the head, causing it to swell up. The hair would fall out, because hair is no longer needed to help keep the bodywarm. To top it all off, astronauts could expect the onset of space-obesity, the result of a lack of exercise in microgravity.
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A recent development in food science may offer solace for dieters who are fed up, so to speak, with the tried-and-true “eat-less, move-more” mantra: Scientists say that modifying a common food additive makes food take longer to leave the body, literally keeping you full for twice as long.

Most processed foods contain emulsifiers and stabilizers, which enhance texture and prevent ingredients from separating. Scientists say that adding a type of stabilizer that is more chemically stable keeps food in the body for a longer period of time—about twice as long—because it makes food harder to break down.

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In case the shock value from Super Size Me is starting to wear off, here’s an excerpt from the abstract of a paper in the Annals of Diagnostic Pathology. It was published last year, but the point is no less revolting today:

The purpose of this study is to assess the content of 8 fast food hamburger brands using histologic methods. Eight different brands of hamburgers were evaluated for water content by weight and microscopically for recognizable tissue types…Water content by weight ranged from 37.7% to 62.4% (mean, 49%)…The cost per gram of hamburger ranged from $0.02 to $0.16 (median, $0.03) and did not correlate with meat content. Electron microscopy showed relatively preserved skeletal muscle…Fast food hamburgers are comprised of little meat (median, 12.1%). Approximately half of their weight is made up of water. Unexpected tissue types found in some hamburgers included bone, cartilage, and plant material; no brain tissue was present. Sarcocystis parasites were discovered in 2 hamburgers.

Hungry, anyone?

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Discoblog: So Is It a Disease? United Airlines to Double-Charge Obese Fliers

Image: iStockphoto

Nothing like a new airline policy to fan a raging societal debate. United, the country’s third largest airline, has just announced that it’s joining Southwest, Continental, and Alaska Air Group by making obese coach passengers buy two seats, rather than infringe on the space of other passengers. And if a flight is packed, overweight fliers may have to get off the plane and wait for one that’s less crowded. If that happens, the airline will waive fees it usually charges for changed travel plans.

Cue the outcry from obesity doctors and activists (not to mention the gleeful cackles from plaintiff’s attorneys hungry for discrimination suits). They take the stance that obesity is a disease, and thus any action that negatively affects people inflicted with that disease is unethical. One such protester is Dr. Caroline Apovian, the director of nutrition and weight management at Boston University Medical Center and an obesity treatment adviser at Everyday Health, who told DISCOVER:

Obesity is a disease, there is no question about it. If weight watchers worked, everyone who wanted to would lose weight—but the circuitry in the body is such that it’s not possible. Surgery is not providing a solution for enough people…This would be the first time that someone is being punished for having a disease.

While the last statement is categorically untrue, the fundamental issue remains: Is obesity a disease? Or merely a condition/state of being that can be altered by behavior?

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Forget the debate over numbered versus lettered grades: The latest news in report cards is a new issue, and it’s personal. Children in Massachusetts will now be sent home with a “fat card,” or a report card of their Body Mass Index.

Students already have their heights and weights measured annually at school. Now, according to the Massachusetts Public Health Council’s new rule, those measurements will be calculated into a BMI and sent home in a package to parents explaining what the numbers mean and how to fight obesity.

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It’s only Monday, and there’s already a toss-up for worst science article of the week. Scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health seem not to have realized that when it comes to weight gain, we’ve got one thing figured out: The fewer calories you consume, the less weight you put on. So they spent time and resources on a study to reach the following conclusion: Drinking water is less likely to cause obesity in kids than drinking sugar-sweetened drinks like soda and juice.

Weirder yet, the researchers don’t even sound assertive, as if their hypothesis needs further testing—not drinking sugary beverages, they say, “can reduce” excess calorie consumption. Well, yes, it can—and it does.

But while there’s validity, however obvious, to the Columbia  study, the U.K.’s Bath Spa University has just published its own, er, breed of ludicrous research: a study concluding that pet owners look like their dogs.

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It seems that every passing day brings more bad economic news—but it’s not just your wallet that’s taking a hit from the recession. New research indicates that your teeth and liver (not to mention your waistline) are as well.

Rehab centers have reported a sharp rise in the number of bankers (and other white-collar workers) seeking treatment for substance abuse, depression, or both.

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In another example of a news report that lacks… reporting/analysis/context/rational thought, the increasing size of women’s breasts is apparently mystifying “braologists” in New Zealand. This one-quotation article says that over the last three years, bra sizes between D and J have increased more rapidly than those from AA to C.

With no mention of the growing obesity epidemic worldwide, it does not answer (or ask) the question of whether it’s an overall increase in body weight that’s translating into into the larger busts.

Plus there’s the little matter of cosmetic breast enhancements, which may also be the cause of the increase. Of course, it’s much more fun (and incorrect) to simply imply that every young lass in New Zealand is simply growing bigger knockers these days.

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Discoblog: Worst Science Article of the Week: Drinking Coffee Shrinks Your Breasts?

Image: Flickr / AZAdam