People seldom take off the weight they put on around the winter holidays, and so it often builds up year after year, experts say in a December 13 Associated Press (AP) article. The typical American eats 25% more calories than normal on Thanksgiving and Christmas, 10% extra on Christmas Eve, and single-digit increases on New Year's Eve and Day, the AP reported. On a normal day, experts told the AP, the average American eats 200 calories more than needed, plus 300 more piled on each weekend day.

According to Alice Chang, M.D. at Harvard Medical School, the next anti-obesity medication to get approval in the United States will probably be rimonabant. It works by decreasing the reward messages in the brain that make you want to keep eating. It will also be used to help quit smoking. It has had the best results so far in helping people to lose weight and keep it off. Like any new medication, it will be used cautiously to see whether any unanticipated side effects develop as more people start using it.

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