Weight Loss Research: Your family can make your fat ♦ Critical windows to turn away junk food craving ♦ Commercial weight-loss programs - Most don't work

Critical windows to turn away junk food craving Researchers have shown there are two critical windows during the developmental pathway to adulthood when exposure to junk food is most harmful, particularly for female offspring.

The brain-belly connection: Scientists find key genetic triggers in weight-regulating brain cells The little voice inside your head that tells you to eat, or stop eating, isn't a little voice – it’s actually a cluster of about 10,000 specialized brain cells. And now, scientists have found tiny triggers inside those cells that give rise to this “voice”, and keep it speaking throughout life.

Stress and obesity: Your family can make your fat A new study suggests a relationship between long-term exposure to three specific types of family stressors and children becoming obese by the time they turn 18.

Few commercial weight-loss programs show reliable evidence of effectiveness: Most don't work In a bid to help physicians guide obese and overweight patients who want to try a commercial weight-loss program, researchers reviewed 4,200 studies for solid evidence of their effectiveness but concluded only a few dozen of the studies met the scientific gold standard of reliability