A hospital in the U.K. has some overweight mothers-to-be outraged. Weston General Hospital will refuse to deliver babies to pregnant women with a body mass index of 34 or more. That roughly equates a woman who is 5’6” and weighs about 210 pounds. Their reasoning behind what many women are calling discrimination? Mothers with a high BMI are at risk for bleeding and severe labor complications. They will send these mothers to another hospital 20 miles away with a more hi-tech maternity ward. This all sounds shady to me. The last thing any woman in labor needs is to: a) be told she’s fat and b) to take a full-on road trip to deliver her baby. Sounds like Weston General Hospital needs to upgrade their freaking maternity ward. But what do you think? Is this discrimination or a step forward in the war on obesity? [Daily Mail]

Just when I thought no one could exploit her struggle with weight any more than Carnie Wilson, Kirstie Alley is fat again and eager to capitalize on it. Rumor has it that she signed on to do a reality show on A&E about her struggle to lose weight. I wonder if it will air in the same time slot as Carnie’s show, “Unstapled”? And I wonder what it will be called—my best guesses are “Tipping The Scale” and “Really Fat Actress.” Inner grimace. Inner groan.

Yesterday, Oprah Winfrey discussed beauty rituals and standards around the world on her talk show. I had no idea Iran was the “nose job capital of the world,” but I was really shocked that Mauritanian women don’t want to be thin. Plump is sexy for women there, but men are expected to be thin. Thick ankles, chubby arms, and a big butt are considered the most beautiful parts of a woman in this West African nation. Men even like stretch marks! Thin women are thought of as being sickly. But don’t move to Mauritania just yet because this beauty ideal has its own flaws.

Suman Khatun weights 168 pounds even though she’s only five years old and three and a half feet tall. Doctors suspect she suffers from a hormone imbalance, like a malfunctioning pituitary gland, but since her family can’t afford to take her to Calcutta for expert treatment, no one knows for sure. Her family earns slightly less than $10 per week, so her appetite could literally eat them out of house and home. In one week, she consumes about 22 pounds of rice, 24 eggs, six liters of milk, and about 11 pounds of potatoes. When Suman, who also has trouble breathing because of her weight, isn’t fed, her mother says she screams, cries, and has even thrown rocks at her family. She’s also been known to sneak out and beg food from neighbors in her village. A local doctor first noticed her problem when she was three months old, but by the time she was two she already weighed 98 pounds. She has gained about 33 pounds every year after that. The doctor can only treat her symptoms, he says, because he doesn’t have the proper diagnostic treatment, but he fears Suman will die if she doesn’t stop over-eating or get medical attention. [The Telegraph]

Wondering who to blame for your battle with the scale? Your same-gender parent—in other words, your mom if you’re a chick and your dad if you’re a dude. A study has found that overweight mothers are ten times more likely to have obese daughters, and tubby fathers are six times more likely to have portly sons. So why is this finding so interesting? Because it suggests that it’s not straight genetics that determine your girth—it’s more likely learned behavior. Fascinating, no? [News AU]

America’s former sweetheart is apparently pretty mean! Britney Spears has reportedly been giving ex-hub Kevin Federline crap about turning into a fatty-bo-batty. She allegedly calls him “K-Fatter-line,” “fat housewife,” and often asks him when the baby’s due. According to Celebitchy, BritBrit has insisted K-Fed lose the 85-or-so pounds he’s gained since they got married five years ago, so he can “stop showing their kids it’s OK to be fat and sloppy.” [Celebitchy]

Wait, I’m not sure who to make fun of first. Britney calling anyone sloppy is amazing. I feel bad for K-Fed getting made fun of, but he does hookup with mad chicks and has totally mooched off Britney for years. Do you guys think Britney’s being rude or should K-Fed drop the extra Olsen?

New research suggests that a mother’s ability to determine whether her child is overweight and at risk for physical health problems depends on her own weight. Overweight mothers seem to have a tendency of underestimating their child’s weight, according to the findings of Dr. Petra Warschburger and Katja Kroller of the University of Potsdam in Germany. However, they do recognize that being overweight can lead to mental health problems for children because the mothers “experience weight-related emotional strain,” according to researchers. Since many of the mothers were able to accurately determine whether an unrelated child was overweight, researchers believe the mothers’ judgment of their children is affected by their emotions not a universal inability to recognize overweight children. [Reuters]

But their could be some hope for overweight children who become overweight or obese teens…

Two recent studies, a Canadian one and a Japanese one, have found that slightly overweight people live longer than healthy weight folks. The two separate groups of researchers said they expected both underweight and obese people to have many more health concerns than healthy weight people, but they were surprised that a few extra pounds could protect people from an early death. However, the researchers warn against healthy weight people bulking up. “Our study only looked at mortality, not at quality of life, and there are many negative health consequences associated with obesity, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes,” said Kaplan, a professor of Community Health at Portland State University that participated in the Canadian study.

Now I’m really confused. Society says thin is in. Health professionals say to stay within an ideal body mass index. Researchers say a little cushion keeps death from pushing—but don’t do anything with these findings. So I’m going to weigh the positives and negatives of each weight category to see which one is really ideal.

You may have to look very closely to figure out what’s happening in this ad. Still clueless? Well, the biker is trudging up the hairy belly of an obese man, warning us that if we don’t “stay in shape,” we’ll end up a sedentary slob. That’s my take on the ad, anyway, not that I agree. I think a more successful ad would have been to show overweight people that they can still do activities like riding a bike, not shame them. Or maybe SPW Bike’s goal was just to get attention in a clever way. What do you think? See the female version of the ad after the jump. [Copyranter]

Three new studies have come out over the weekend that do anything but blow my mind. In fact, they annoy and perplex me. I’m all for research, but not when my tax dollars are funding what seems to be the accumulation of useless information. After the jump, three studies we could have done without.

What’s the antidote to a culture that tells women, in a multitude of ways, “thin is better?” Marianne Kirby, 31, and Gabrielle Gregg, 22, who were interviewed by ABC News, both have felt the pressure to be thin, but have become the faces of the “fat acceptance movement,” which seeks to assure women that your appearance has nothing to do with your self-worth. This is certainly an attitude I can get behind, especially because there are many negative and untrue stereotypes made about people who are overweight. However, just as there is an obviously negative side to celebrating thinness, I believe the same danger exists in telling people who are very overweight that “fat is beautiful.”

Couples that live together are twice as likely to become obese than those that live separately, according to new research. Although cohabitation does result in some health benefits, like decreased cigarette smoking and lower mortality, Penny Gordon-Larsen, associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, found that married couples and those living together had greater weight gains than other people of the same age, and the couples had a greater risk for obesity. She said age may not be the cause of the weight gain, but the pressure of changing behaviors could be. People living together tend to eat together, cook bigger meals, and eat out more frequently than when they were single, said Gordon-Larsen. Spouses, she added, can be good influences on each other, as long as, they realize what’s going on. That may be how they avoid packing on the extra pounds. [Telegraph via Impact Lab]

“American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest and British chef Jamie Oliver have announced they’re teaming up for a big challenge. In their upcoming reality show that’s expected to hit the airwaves next year, the dynamic duo plans to battle obesity in the U.S. Oliver is going to hit the “fattest cities” in an attempt to salvage their diets. Clearly, they’ve got a superhero complex, but aren’t they going to give the rest of us a real complex?

Teenage mothers are at a greater risk of becoming obese than other women their age who don’t get pregnant, according to a new study by health care provider Kaiser Permanente. “Our findings are potentially important because adolescence has been identified as one of the critical periods of development that set the stage for the onset of obesity later in life,” wrote researchers in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Their findings show that pregnancy boosts obesity risks for adult women, and that adolescent pregnancy may have a greater influence on the body weight and fat accumulations of teens.

A larger waistline may enhance a man’s chance of being promoted in the U.S., whereas overweight women have little prospects of being promoted, according to a study published recently. Researchers found that only 5 percent of male and female bosses at 1,000 leading companies in the U.S. were considered obese—an average of 36 percent of men and 38 percent of women of a similar age are obese in the United States. However, they also found that of the leading male bosses, 61 percent were overweight—only 41 percent of males the same age are overweight in the United States. In contrast, overweight women made up only 22 percent of the chief executives, compared with 29 percent of same age women in the U.S. “The results suggest that while being obese limits the career opportunities of both women and men, being ‘merely overweight’ harms only female executives – and may actually benefit male executives,” said researcher Mark Roehling, an associate professor of human resource management at Michigan State University. The study also backs up previous research that shows weight standards for women are harsher in white, middle-class communities. The study also suggests there’s a preference for larger-sized men and smaller-sized women in the business world. “It appears that the glass ceiling effect on women’s advancement may reflect not only general negative stereotypes about the competencies of women, but also weight bias that results in the application of stricter appearance standards to women,” said Roehling. [News.Scotsman.com]

There’s been a dramatic increase in obesity in the U.S. over the past 20 years, and a new study from researchers in Scotland suggests obesity might be inhibiting men’s fertility. Past studies have shown that this is the case with women, and this new study, which looked at sperm samples from 5,000 men and divided them into groups based on the Body Mass Index, found that those with a normal BMI (20 to 25) had higher levels of normal sperm than those who were overweight or obese. Underweight men also had fewer normal sperm, “but there were not many underweight men in Scotland,” said Ghiyath Shayeb, the lead researcher. He and his team have a couple ideas about what could cause the issues in overweight men, and they either think fat tissues influence the metabolism of sex hormones, or the increase in fat may cause a rise in body temperature and result in overheating. Sperm is best produced at a temperature two degrees cooler than the normal body temperature—who knew? [CBS News]

We often hear about women trying to lose weight before their wedding, but here’s a story about a man doing so, and it’s not just a few extra pounds. Manuel Uribe, who has dropped 550 lbs. over the last two years, celebrates his 43rd birthday today, and his wish is to be able to walk down the aisle on his wedding—he hasn’t been able to leave his bed for the last six years. Still, his fiancée said they have a real relationship, including sex, and the only real issue is that her parents were concerned that her first husband, also obese, had died of respiratory failure. Manuel, who lives in Mexico, says his obesity began when he lived in the U.S. about 10 years ago and consumed a diet of junk food and soft drinks. “It is all because of the junk food,” he said. [CBS News]