A new report calls attention to cancer in people with mental illness, suggesting that healthcare system and societal factors are just as critical as individual lifestyle factors— linked to smoking and obesity—that lead to health disparities among this group. The report appears early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

More than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults and 17% of youth in the U.S. are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Obese employees miss more work days, and those absences carry high costs at the state and national level, according to a study in the November Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

Popular commercial diets can help you lose some weight in the short term, but keeping the weight off after the first year and the diet’s impact on heart health are unclear, according to a study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a visual, state-by-state illustration of the obesity level in the United States.

U.S. workplaces may need to consider innovative methods to prevent fatigue from developing in employees who are obese. Based on results from a new study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene (JOEH), workers who are obese may have significantly shorter endurance times when performing workplace tasks, compared with their non-obese counterparts.

With obesity rates continuing to rise in the U.S. (they’ve doubled since 1980), health experts are urging Americans to be more physically active, and urging policy makers to help them do that. A new report from the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion rates the progress on both those fronts, state by state.

If work and the workplace contribute to poor health behaviors, should employers attempt to improve those behaviors? It likely is in the employer’s best interest to do so.