Tom Siegfried: CART peptides may provide a path to coping with obesity
As with other addictions, willpower alone is seldom a sufficient treatment. Sure, it works for some people, but in most people the motivation to eat overwhelms concerns for health and image.

Continuing education
Traditional resources, such as books and organizations, are still a good way to learn more about the challenges of obesity. World Wide Web sites are taking advantage of modern technology to provide new twists, including interactive charts, calculators and fitness programs.

Questions and answers
Does everyone's body have a "set point" for weight, and can it be changed for better or worse?

This primer offers some help in coming to terms with obesity

Weighty matters
Weight is so deeply personal that most people can answer with atomic exactness. But in truth, numbers on the bathroom scale don't dictate whether a person is too heavy to be healthy. That conclusion also has to take into account height, muscle mass, fat distribution, fitness, body frame, age and medical history.

Don't just sit there ...
Modern conveniences, designed to save time, cost individuals many chances to burn calories. Here are some of those missed opportunities, along with a rough estimate of the extra calories that could be burned** (and the calories burned by using the convenience):

On a cultural scale
In China, the developing field of acupuncture suggests the technique of placing sharp objects in the pinna of the ear to reduce "appetite."

Research shows biology's role in obesity
In the United States and many other developed nations, millions of human bodies encounter more food and fewer physical demands than ever before.

Fatness, fitness can co-exist
"Worshiping thinness, focusing on thinness, hammering away at diet, hammering away at a low-fat diet, telling fat people they're going to die - it's not working," said Dr. Blair, director of research at The Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas.

The whys of weight
It's no mystery why America is getting fat. There's more eating than exercising going on.

Heaping helpings
One reason it might be easy to overeat when dining out is because a restaurant "serving" usually dwarfs the official serving described in government eating guidelines.

Obesity treatments
The weight-loss drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of obesity are designed to decrease the number of calories people take in.

Medical methods can help overcome obstacles to weight loss
Medical problems can escalate the battle of the bulge into a full-scale war.

War on weight
Hippocrates, the father of medicine, preached that the way to lose weight was to eat less and exercise more.

From food to fuel
When you eat a cheeseburger and fries, where does the fat go? Scientists believe the answer depends in part on whether you are truly hungry when you eat.

Food and failure
Dieting may be harder than giving up smoking. An overeater can't go cold turkey.

Expert advice
Many experts believe that people who are overweight, but not obese, with no other medical complications, should concentrate on not gaining any more weight rather than on slimming down.

Fad chance!
Fad diets work … and don't work. People can lose weight with fad diets, but the weight will almost surely come back. That's because fad diets cause people to eat fewer calories but don't include practical long-term changes that help dieters keep the weight off.

08/29/99

Through thick and thin
For many, many Americans, losing weight would be a healthy step. But cultural pressure to slim down can also be unhealthy: Witness the stigma that surrounds fat people, and the stress that results from failed attempts to lose weight.

Girth of a nation
If we are what we eat, then Coca-Cola hints at what we've become.