Individual deprivation (low income or education) is amplified by area-level deprivation (lack of jobs or good schools), increasing health inequalities.

Food is widely available even in the most depressed and oppressed neighborhoods, but it’s likely to be high-calorie, processed pseudo-food.

While government programs do try to reduce obesity, they rarely specifically address the racial and ethnic disparities that factor into childhood obesity.

Weight-loss surgery in the U.S. is twice as likely to be performed on a white teen. Various experts suggest reasons for this disparity.

In the U.S., economic deprivation and social inequality are prone to coincide with obesity, and obesity is much more widespread among people of color.

The researchers found evidence that, in adulthood, long-term weight loss is hard to sustain because the body constantly strives to return to its largest size.

Poverty is very much linked to race in America. It’s also reflected in the prevalence of obesity among the historically disenfranchised groups.

Research shows there is a strong likelihood that racially and ethnically targeted marketing contributes to health disparities, including obesity rates.

Childhood Obesity News has been tracing the recent history of research into the relationship between obesity and ethnicity in America.

In economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, fast food outlets were named as a major contributory factor to the obesogenic environment.

There doesn’t seem to be a link between early onset puberty and obesity in boys, but it’s there in girls. Psychosocial stress also contributes to obesity.

Research suggests that different factors during pregnancy, infancy and early childhood might explain racial and ethnic differences in obesity rates.

Most medical professionals see stress eating and comfort eating as the same phenomenon, and both are included under emotional eating.

“Does Comfort Eating Work?” is a question that is asked seriously by bona fide residents of Academia.

Is it possible that the reward inherent in stress/comfort eating has nothing to do with the ingredients and everything to do with a connection made in the mind?

For many professionals in the field, comfort/stress eating lives under the larger umbrella of “emotional eating.”

Childhood Obesity News is looking at the ideas of medical professionals working with patients who find it nearly impossible to quit wheat and/or gluten.

People need to feel that they are valued and loved, even if they are not particularly healthy; indeed, even if they are morbidly obese.

Researchers had accepted that when it comes to recognizing what constitutes the developmental pathway to obesity “multi-factorial” is the word of the century.

Genes influence a person’s brain and behavior. They influence obesity too, but after that, almost everything else is a big mystery.

Studies show that the genetic basis of obesity is multi-factorial, unsurprisingly.

Does obesity cause MS? Some researchers read the evidence as an absolute yes, but it hasn’t been proven.

The metabolic syndrome, also known as insulin resistance, increases risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and is linked to obesity.

What if one of the main factors in diabetes management is Vitamin D deficiency? And is obesity a symptom of thyroid disease, or a cause?

Pro-inflammatory macrophages trigger low-grade inflammation that promotes systemic insulin resistance. Or… does the insulin resistance cause the inflammation?

Studies show that visceral fat is associated with increased inflammation, and also with increased risk of obesity-related co-morbidities.

Because of the complex combination of factors originating in the immune and endocrine systems it is still not clear exactly what goes on in the adipose tissue.

Obesity is connected with low-grade chronic inflammation, but then it gets complicated, because obesity is also associated with insulin resistance.

What’s the relationship, if any, between obesity and inflammation? Does one cause the other, or do they co-exist due to some other cause?

A recent study published by the JAMA Network looks at the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and long-term mortality.