All football players may be big, but a new study finds only linemen are obese. The report also shows linemen on a Division I college football team are more likely than the other players to have high blood pressure, pre-diabetes and other weight-related health problems.

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As obesity rates continue to climb, new research finds some obese people do not realize they have a weight problem. The study says one in ten people classified as obese do not understand they are overweight, and believe they are healthy.

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Remember the book, French Women Don’t Get Fat? Sadly, things have changed. A new report shows 15.1 percent of France’s women are obese and another 26 percent are overweight. Researchers say the average French person has gained almost 7 pounds over the past 12 years, and part of the reason is a change in eating habits and more fast food restaurants in the country.

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We’ve talked about how easy it is to put on “recession pounds” during this tough economy. Now, a new report finds people who are badly in debt are more likely to be overweight or obese. Researchers say “overindebted” people – those who can’t pay off debts in a reasonable amount of time – are about twice as likely to be overweight as the general population and they are more than 2.5 times as likely to be obese.

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The obesity epidemic seems to be taking an especially hard toll on blacks. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds nearly 36-percent of black Americans are obese compared to about 29 percent of Hispanics and 24 percent of whites. Obesity rates were 40-percent or greater among blacks in five states – Alabama, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oregon.

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Here’s more proof of how the obesity epidemic is hurting our kids. New research shows obese children as young as seven have high levels – up to 10 times the normal amount – of compounds linked to heart disease and heart attacks. Other studies have shown signs of heart disease in even younger kids.

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If you’re obese when you’re pregnant, you really have to watch that scale. New guidelines from the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council say obese moms-to-be should limit their weight gain during pregnancy to between 11 and 20 pounds, both for their health and for the health of their baby. That’s about half of what is recommended for normal-weight pregnant women and shows the concern over the growing number of obese expectant mothers in the United States. It’s the first time the guidelines have been updated since 1990.

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The obesity problem in Australia has gotten so bad, the country is now considering government-funded lap-band surgery to help turn things around. The plan would have taxpayers pick up the tab for the surgery, which involves attaching a band around the entrance to the stomach so patients feel full after eating only a little food. More than a third of Australians are estimated to be overweight or obese.

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The friendly skies are getting a bit less friendly for the obese. United Airlines just announced if an obese passenger is bumped off a full flight, he or she will now have to buy a second seat on another flight.

United says it made the changes after it got more than 700 complaints last year from passengers who said they had an uncomfortable flight because the person next to them “infringed on their seat.”

Under the new policy, if flight attendants cannot find two open seats for an obese passenger, he or she will be required to buy an additional ticket or upgrade to business class, where seats are larger. But if the plane is full, the passenger will be bumped from the flight and can choose to either buy a second ticket on the next available flight or cancel their flight and get a refund.

United Airlines defines an obese passenger as:

• unable to fit into a single seat in the ticketed cabin;
• unable to properly buckle the seatbelt using a single seatbelt extender; and/or
• unable to put the seat’s armrests down when seated.

Other airlines already have similar policies, including Continental, Delta, and Southwest.

What do you think? Should obese passengers have to buy two airline seats?

[Photo Credit: Arpingstone/Wikipedia]

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Children who have their tonsils out with or without having their adenoids removed are more at risk for becoming overweight in the years after the surgery, says a new report in the the journal Pediatrics. Researchers say a tonsillectomy significantly increased the odds of being overweight by age eight by 61 percent and the odds of being obese by 136 percent.

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