After The Fat's Been Sucked Out, Where Does It Go?

The New York Times describes the exploration on the aftermath of liposuction. What happens if the fat comes back and where does it go? The results of the commonly practiced cosmetic surgery don't seem nearly as pretty once you find out where the extra fat is being picked up.


With Liposuction, the Belly Finds What the Thighs Lose
By GINA KOLATA
Published: April 30, 2011

THE woman’s hips bulged in unsightly saddlebags. Then she had liposuction and, presto, those saddlebags disappeared.

Photo after photo on plastic surgery Web sites make liposuction look easy, its results transformative. It has become the most popular plastic surgery, with more than 450,000 operations a year, each costing a few thousand dollars.

But does the fat come back? And if it does, where does it show up?

Until now, no one knew for sure. But a new study, led by Drs. Teri L. Hernandez and Robert H. Eckel of the University of Colorado, has answered those questions. And what he found is not good news. More...

Convenient Obesity

In South Los Angeles, researchers have determined a culprit to childhood obesity. They believe convenience store that sell sugary snacks, chips, and sodas play a huge role. They found many of the students daily bought snacks and would easily down 356 calories. And sometimes students would even get a snack more than once.

Obesity concerns spur calls to limit new convenience stores in South L.A.
The proposed rules, an outgrowth of last year's city restrictions on new fast-food restaurants, are prompted by links found by researchers between snack foods and obesity in poor communities.
By Jerry Hirsch
October 12, 2009

Links found by researchers between snack foods and obesity in poor communities are prompting new calls for more regulation of convenience stores in South Los Angeles.

The proposed new regulations under discussion are an outgrowth and expansion of last year's city restrictions on new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile area of South Los Angeles. The area is home to about 500,000 residents, including those who live in West Adams, Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park.

Motivated by new data focusing on convenience stores, civic activists and a City Council member favor limiting the development of new convenience stores.

A study by Santa Monica think tank Rand Corp. published in the research journal Health Affairs last week said calories from snacks were a likely culprit of higher obesity rates in South Los Angeles. The authors also found that South Los Angeles had a dramatically higher concentration of the type of small convenience store that sells caloric snacks than other sections of the city. More...

A Concentration of Health Expenses

August 24, 2009, 4:08 pm

By Amanda Cox

In 2006, health care expenses among half the United States population totaled less than $800 per individual, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. But the expenditures were not uniformly distributed throughout the overall population. Spending was far higher among the elderly, the obese and people who identified themselves as unhealthy. Median spending in those groups totaled $2,300 per individual. Although these patients represent just one-third of the population, they accounted for almost 60 percent of health care spending.

A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down

According to Mary Poppins, sugar makes the medicine go down, right? Wrong. The sugar is taking too much of a toll on our bodies and is slowly damaging us. The average American is slowly giving himself or herself too much sugar. We are eating nearly 22 teaspoons of sugar a day and we need to cut back or we'll make ourselves more obese and have numerous health problems which'll make the medicine come up and impose a large cost on us in a bad economy.

Heart Group: Cut Back -Way Back- on Sugar
by Jamie Stengle, Associated Press Writer- Tue Aug 25 4:28 AM PDT

DALLAS - A spoonful of sugar? Americans are swallowing 22 teaspoons of sugar each day, and it's time to cut way back, the American Heart Association says. More...

Fat Tax

First, cigarettes were taxed and we saw a huge jump in the number of people who were smoking. That was the most effective way in getting people to quit or reduce the amount they smoked, and some think this idea should be applied to some of your favorite junk foods. Will the same strategy work for a different product?


Calls to tax junk food gain ground
A surcharge on cigarettes has helped curb smoking, but will the same tactic work to fight obesity?
By Karen Kaplan
August 23, 2009

"Sin taxes" on cigarettes have turned out to be the most effective weapon in the campaign to reduce smoking.

Why not try it on Flamin' Hot Cheetos, vanilla Coke and Twinkies?

With increasing vigor, public health experts and think tanks are calling for extra taxes on foods and drinks that are heavy in calories and light on nutrition. New York Gov. David Paterson proposed an 18% soda tax last year as a budget-balancing measure, only to abandon it three months later in the face of stiff public opposition. Lawmakers in at least five other states have gone on the record in support of the idea.

Junk-food taxes are often mentioned as a way to help fund a restructuring of the healthcare system, though no one in Congress has endorsed them. More...

Less Cash Links to Bigger Bellies

Stories have found those of you who are scraping your wallets in this financial time has lead to people with bigger paunches and more trips for cheap fast food. These hard financial times have also lead to more cases of depression, obesity, and drug use. Hopefully the hard times will soon be done, and people can go back to worrying about things such as their waistline.

More Debt Means More Obesity, Study Says
Being in Debt Doubles Risk of Being Overweight
By CHARLES BANKHEAD
MedPage Today Staff Writer
Aug. 9, 2009

Financial belt-tightening could result in a literal belt loosening as hard times force people to adjust their dietary habits, according to a German study of indebtedness and obesity.

The likelihood of being overweight or obese doubled with increasing indebtedness, an association that could not be explained by other socioeconomic or medical factors, according to an article published online in the journal BMC Public Health.

One plausible explanation relates to the potential impact of indebtedness on risk factors for obesity and other chronic diseases. More...

Severe Child Obesity On the Rise

A recent study has shown there has been a massive jump in the numbers of children who are-shall we say-grown massive? The study recorded BMI of some children whom are considered severely or morbidly obese, and compared it to a study taken 25 years ago. The results? Not good.

Study: Childhood Obesity Rates Have Tripled
Devetta Blount
7/27/2009 3:25:27 PM

Winston-Salem, NC-- Rates of severe childhood obesity have tripled in the last 25 years, according to a recent study by an obesity expert at Brenner Children's Hospital.

"In addition to seeing the overall numbers of childhood obesity rise dramatically, we saw a significant jump in the number of severely obese children," said Joseph Skelton, M.D., an obesity expert at Brenner Children's Hospital and Director of the Brenner FIT (Families in Training) Program. "We saw that children who are classified as severely obese are also much sicker and are at higher risk of developing chronic illnesses, such as heart disease and diabetes. This reinforces the fact that medically-based programs to treat obesity are needed throughout the United States and insurance companies should be encouraged to cover these types of programs." More...