At the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington Saturday night, Jimmy Kimmel cracked wise about husky New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was in the audience seated next to television's Sofia Vergara. Kimmel made three jokes at Christie's expense, first telling the health-conscious first lady that Christie was in the audience and that she should "get him." Then, directly addressing the governor, Kimmel said, "You might be misunderstanding the New Jersey state slogan. It's not the 'Olive' Garden State." Here's video, in case you missed it: more ›

The battle against childhood obesity continues, with...breakfast? A number of the city's public schools have joined cities like Los Angeles and Chicago by serving breakfast in the classroom, providing children from low-income families with a meal they might not have at home. Breakfast has been offered in all public school cafeterias for a while, but in-classroom meals served to all students is seen as a way to make all kids get the most important meal of the day. more ›

Instead of Twitter-crying about your landlord forgetting to turn your one wheezing radiator on, you should be thanking him for getting you ready for swimsuit season. New studies have revealed the existence of brown fat in humans, which burns calories "like a furnace" when the body gets cold. Look for Brown Fat Smoothies soon at a McDonald's near you. more ›

An artist adds some pounds to the cereal icon, in an attempt to draw attention to the unhealthy breakfast treat. more ›

When Paula Deen told Al Roker yesterday that she has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, no one was really surprised, but plenty of people were pissed, over all sorts of things: that she hid her condition for so long (three years), that she says she doesn't plan to change what she eats (she'll just eat less of it), and that she's conveniently getting paid to shill for the diabetes medication Victoza. Are the complaints justified? more ›

According to a recent study published in Health Affairs, a penny-per-ounce tax on soda and sugary beverages would cut consumption by 15% in adults ages 25-64. The researchers from UC San Francisco also found that from 2010 through 2020, the tax would prevent 2.4 million cases of diabetes, 95,000 coronary heart events, 8,000 strokes and 26,000 premature deaths, while saving $17 billion in health expenditures and generating $13 billion annually. But enough of this nanny-state nonsense: we need less regulation of the financial sector! more ›

Nanny Bloomberg's Department of Health is letting itself go this term! Just three years ago they were terrifying New Yorkers with soda that turned into human fat in the air and now they are resorting to fat chicks on scooters and expanding hamburger line graphs. Even compared the department's recent "casual smoking will KILL you" campaign this one seems lackluster. Still, they got us to talk about them? more ›

Health professionals and parents are up in arms today over a new anti-obesity ad campaign in Georgia, featuring stark black-and-white photos of overweight children with lines like “Some diseases aren’t just for adults anymore,” and “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid.” Is it a useful tactic, or just shameful? And when will Bloomberg bring it to New York? more ›

Bad news for the 65 million people who are on the express highway to obesity the next few years—not only will you be fat, but you'll also be poor, especially if you're a chick! more ›

Nanny Bloomberg had some relatively good news to brag about today. Bucking national trends, the overall obesity rate among NYC kindergartners through eighth graders has dropped 5.5 percent in the last five years. Of course it has gone from 21.9 percent obese in 2006-07 to 20.7 percent in 2010-11, but still! Notably, the sharpest decline has been seen in kids aged 5-6, which has good implications for the long term. So naturally hizzoner took the news as proof that "years of pioneering policies to improve child nutrition and encourage exercise" (and maybe scary ads!) were behind the drop. more ›

A Queens man is suing his former employer, the furniture store Raymour & Flanigan, for discrimination after his manager allegedly would not stop making fun of his weight. According to court documents obtained by the Post, 48-year-old Thomas Hunt claims that supervisor Marlene Albarano denied him a promotion, and on one occasion even ordered him to walk circles around the building because of his stature. Ha-ha somebody tell Billy Crystal he's fired: we have a fresh, new comedic genius to host this year's Oscars. more ›

Bless America, the land of wondrous innovation: scientists are developing a gum that might help people lose weight by suppressing their appetite while they chew. It's the perfect snack to pop while you wait for that pizza you ordered from your TV to arrive. more ›

Kids today grow up so fast. They're having their first Kahlua mudslide at 15 months, and the next thing you know they're getting on the schoolbus in a bikini. But 10-year-old CJ Senter, "WorkoutKid" and "Child Motivator," possesses discipline that eludes most adults: he's scarily ripped. As in, the urge to clean your laundry on his abs is pretty much irrisitable. Or as this ABC News anchor puts it (in a totally not-creepy way): "His name is CJ Senter, and his body is amazing." more ›

With the original Famous Ray's Pizza closing, New Yorkers everywhere are wondering: how can the country's goal of a 50% obesity rate be achieved by 2030? With a little help from our robot friends, we'll be getting fatter right on schedule: two New York City entrepreneurs are currently testing a pizza-making vending machine that can crank out a pie in 90 seconds. That's right, in the time that it takes you to call your favorite pizzeria and beg them to use ranch dressing instead of tomato sauce just one more time, you could have a piping hot pie! more ›

Are you self-reliant or do you demand a more human touch? A study conducted by the Food Marketing Institute determined that customers are ditching the self-check-out machines at grocery stores in favor of flesh and blood. Only 16% of transactions were completed at the kiosks in 2010, down from 22% three years ago. "It's just more interactive," one shopper tells the AP, "You get someone who says hello; you get a person to talk to if there's a problem." While computers don't judge you when you stroll up with six cartons of Chubby Hubby and a case of Genesee, conversing with grocery store cashiers DOES count as human contact. more ›

Slow Food, the nonprofit dedicated to extolling the virtues of eating good food, is trying very hard to prove that they're not just for rich, elitist foodies, after all. The group is launching a "$5 Challenge" next week in the attempt to prove that even the common man can live the Slow Food way. more ›

The rapture is still right around the corner, but even if we somehow get past that cataclysmic event, America has other problems—like the fact that half the population will be obese by 2030. But there may be a solution: start smoking marijuana! more ›

A study conducted by esteemed UK medical journal The Lancet has revealed that if the United States continues on its current country-fried path, roughly half of American men and women will be obese, and the UK isn't faring any better. more ›

There's nothing Americans love more than talking about themselves on YouTube, except maybe eating mayonnaise and things that taste like mayonnaise, and talking about mayonnaise, and mayonnaise more mayonnaise please. Kraft is capitalizing on our obsession with the fluffy white stuff by sponsoring the Miracle Whip "Not for Every Relationship" Contest, which will give $25,000 to a couple who makes a 60-second YouTube video detailing "how a simple spread can hold your relationship together," or "pull you apart." So it'll either be "it's a perfect toe-sucking topping" or a divorce story that ends with: "She got the dog, I got the Miracle Whip." Okay, where's out check? more ›

Well, here's a groundbreaking new piece of evidence in the war against obesity: those calorie labels at fast food restaurants are only useful if you actually read them. Who would have thought? more ›

Yesterday we celebrated National French Fries Day, but it turns out that many Americans are celebrating the almighty frites everyday. So last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart killed our deep fried, oil-saturated buzz by drawing attention to rising obesity rates nationwide. In the below segment you will also learn about something created in the Wendy's laboratory, called the Baconator double meal, which is jam-packed with over 2,500 calories! Everyone eat a salad today! more ›

For today's installment of Food News You Probably Could Have Figured Out Yourself, we present the following: a new study shows that the more you eat out, the more likely you are to be fat. Who would'a thunk it? more ›

Forget Big Tobacco (they own too many other companies as it is), Big Food is pumping millions of dollars into scientists so they can obfuscate clear cut research on obesity. The result is an industry that claims that the jury is still out on what exactly causes obesity, so in the meantime have another bag of Funyons. ABC reports the case of Dr. David Allison, a scientist who runs an obesity research center in Alabama and former president of the Obesity Society, who has taken $2.5 million in grants from the food industry, not including "consulting or speaking fees." Allison was one of the scientists who claimed that New York City's law mandating that the calorie count of foods be displayed would cause people to eat more (not true). "Big tobacco, big sugar," one researcher says, "identical in the way they treat scientists." more ›

You've got to hand it to Barry: while we've been distracted by how he's steered this country in the wrong directions fiscally and socially, he's taken aim for our precious food pyramid, which we've been weaned on since the early '90s. The new version, which will be a plate-shaped symbol, will be unveiled on Thursday by the Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Police and Promotion, and though a spokesman declined to say specifically what was on the plate, one person who has seen it said "it called to mind a painting by the artist Mark Rothko." Well pardon us, but shouldn't this pyramid look more like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting? more ›

Former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi may be ailing, but he was still sentenced to one to four years in prison for his role in the state's pay-to-play pension scandal. On the other hand, Raymond Harding, the former Liberal Party head who took $800,000 in fees from investment firms hoping to be selected for the NY pension fund, was let off with no jail time. And it's partly because he's really overweight —state officials noted his cooperation with the case as well as his health problems. more ›

Seeing unattractive photos of fat people in the media is (part of) why you are fat, according to a new study out of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. According to the researchers, online news sources tend to use negative images of overweight people in stories about obesity (i.e. eating fast food, wearing tight clothes or shown with their heads cut off) and those images in turn perpetuate obesity's bad reputation, which may contribute to obesity itself. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] It's hard out there for a Happy Meal. Two state officials today spoke about separate plans to regulate New Yorkers' caloric intakes. The first initiative comes from City Councilman Leroy Comrie Jr., who wants to follow San Francisco and ban toys from fast-food meals unless the meals meet certain n utritional standards, including that they have fewer than 500 calories. Comrie said in a statement, "By ensuring that toys are only given away with meals which meet the nutritional guidelines set out in this bill, children will be more likely to pick the healthier meals when they do visit fast food restaurants. Children, lured in with toy giveaways at an early age, are more likely to develop a habit of eating unhealthily." more ›