Saturday can be the worst enemy for our waistlines, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

A new comparison of multi-national data, released this month, reveals that highly educated women have a healthier average weight than less educated women, but that the meaning of “healthier” changes according to a nation’s relative wealth. In countries where malnutrition is prevalent, better-educated women weigh more.

People who shed weight and want to keep it off might benefit from monthly personal contact interventions, researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism.

A recent review of the scientific literature concluded that low-calorie (or no-calorie) sweeteners may be of help in resolving the obesity problem. Although they are not magic bullets, low-calorie sweeteners in beverages and foods can help people reduce their calorie (energy) intakes.

A research team from Université Laval’s Faculty of Medicine and Robert-Giffard Hospital has demonstrated that weight gain induced by the use of antipsychotic drugs—which in extreme cases can be as high as 30 kilos in only one month—can be avoided through a specially designed weight control program.

Teen girls who perceive themselves as being lower on the social ladder appear more likely to gain weight over the subsequent two years, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Adolescents who participate in physical education at school are more likely to maintain a normal weight as young adults, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For each weekday of physical education at school the odds of being an overweight adult decreased by 5 percent.

Accepting food cravings and keeping them in check may be an important component of weight management, according to findings from the first six-month phase of a calorie-restriction study conducted at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University.

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The Committee did not recommend its approval for us in obese and overweight patients with associated risk factors

The synthetic form of a hormone previously found to produce a feeling of fullness when eating and reduce body weight, also may help curb binge eating and the desire to eat high-fat foods and sweets. The findings on fast food consumption and binge eating tendencies are based on a 6-week research study of 88 obese individuals.

Why does the same diet make some of us gain more weight than others? The answer could be a molecule called Bsx, as scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], the German Institute for Nutrition [DIFE], Potsdam, and the University of Cincinnati report in the current issue of Cell Metabolism. Bsx is the molecular link between spontaneous physical activity and food intake.