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A new study adds to evidence that severe obesity is becoming more common in young U.S. children. There was some hope that children in a government food program might be bucking a trend in obesity rates — earlier research found rates were dropping a little about a decade ago for those kids. But an update released Monday in the journal Pediatrics shows the rate bounced back up a bit by 2020.The increase echoes other national data, which suggests around 2.5% of all preschool-aged children were severely obese during the same period. (Stobbe, 12/18)

Throughout the day, the machine that is our brain is constantly humming in the background, taking in subtle signals from our gut, hormones, and environment to determine when we're hungry, how food makes us feel, and whether we are taking in enough energy, or expending too much, to survive. Mounting evidence suggests that in people with obesity, something in the machine is broken. (Marshall, 12/18)

Unlike previously thought, overweight and obesity are significantly positively associated with Type 1 diabetes. Research has revealed that in adolescents between the ages of 16 and 19, every incremental standard deviation (SD) from mean body mass index (BMI) was associated with a 25% increased risk of developing T1D (de Souza, 12/18)

Structure Therapeutics said Monday that its experimental GLP-1 pill demonstrated a 1% lowering of blood glucose and slightly more than 3% weight loss relative to a placebo in a 12-week study involving participants with type 2 diabetes — results that are preliminary but don’t quite match a competing oral drug under development by Eli Lilly. (Feuerstein, 12/18)

As more data emerges that obesity drugs like Wegovy can reduce complications from heart and kidney problems as well, scientists have been wondering whether these benefits are driven by weight loss alone or also by other mechanisms. (Chen, 12/18)

The new highly effective class of anti-obesity drugs has often been talked about as an alternative to bariatric surgery — but medications like Wegovy are increasingly being paired with the procedure. While surgeons say the drugs can especially help people with severe obesity maintain weight loss after surgery, the combination presents a pricey scenario for insurers already grappling with the cost of the drugs alone. (Reed, 12/19)

"I'm absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself," Winfrey told the magazine. Winfrey is giving voice to what countless people have felt since embracing a class of drugs that were originally approved for diabetes, but are now being widely used for weight loss. WeightWatchers, the long-running weight loss and weight management program, is also embracing the drugs, which are known as GLP1s. It's a massive shift for a company that has spent 60 years advising people to count their calories – or their points – and use will power. (Summers, Marquez Janse, Ermyas, 12/18)