Finger-pointing is not a recognized weight-loss exercise. But you wouldn't know it from the vigor with which they do it in the fashion industry. Particularly when the subject of skinny models comes up. And recently it has come up a lot, what with one malnourished South American model dying when she stepped off the runway, the Madrid fashion shows barring models who are too thin, and the scary walking chopsticks who came down the runway in New York City this ...

On a Sunday at their modest, gray ranch house in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Tim and Jeanine Pynes gather with four other Christians for an evening of fellowship, food and faith. Jeanine's spicy rigatoni precedes a yogurt-and-wafer confection by Ann Moore, none of the food violating the group's solemn commitment to Weight Watchers. The participants, who have pooled resources for baby sitting, discuss a planned missionary trip and sing along with a CD by the Christian crossover group Sixpence ...

For most people, regular exercise is associated with cardiovascular health. But doctors have long noted a troubling tendency among the ultra-fit: an athlete has a greater chance than the average person of suddenly dropping dead. As physicians and sporting organizations learn more about the condition known as sudden cardiac death , their research has opened an emotive and evolving debate about what can be done to protect athletes — and how much money should be spent trying ...

It's no secret that exercise is key to controlling type 2 diabetes — and many doctors already urge their diabetic patients to get active. But it's a vague directive: How much exercise is enough? How often? And what kind? The simple answer is that any is better than none — in sum, that's what a new study published in the Sept. 18 issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found. But it also found that not ...

We all know that exercise is good for you. Staying physically active helps keep your heart healthy and your muscles strong, and in cancer patients it has even been shown to ward off relapse. Now a series of independently conducted studies on the effects of exercise in healthy older adults, published on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, confirms that logging time at the gym not only helps maintain good health but may even prevent the ...

•SERGEANT JOEY BOZIK What's Fair Got to Do with It? Weeks after an anititank mine ripped his body apart, Sergeant Joey Bozik, 26, emerged from a coma to find himself surrounded by relatives and friends at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As soon as he grasped the extent of his injuries, Bozik asked everyone but his fiancé to leave the room. Although he and Jayme Peters had spent only a few weeks in each other's presence--they met via e-mail while ...

If you have ever fought the battle of the bulge, then you are all too familiar with its key players: diet, exercise and your genes. The less you move and the more you eat , the more fat you gain — an equation that may be heavily influenced by your particular genes. But scientists have long known that these three factors do not adequately explain every case of obesity, and now researchers are discovering increasingly convincing ...

Talk. Share. Cry. Stretch? Psychotherapy has historically been an exercise of the mind, but in the offices of more and more modern-day mental-health providers, emotional healing is taking place not just on the couch but on the yoga mat. The burgeoning field is called yoga therapy, and its practitioners include psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers who incorporate yoga poses and meditative breathing into their sessions, as well as yoga teachers who want to learn how to address the ...

For most pregnant women, exercise is the last thing on their minds. After all, keeping slim while you're expecting isn't exactly the top priority — rather, it's making sure your baby gets enough nutrients to grow. But in a small new study, researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand report that a mother's regular aerobic exercise may be good for a growing fetus' health — and may even help a baby get a healthier start ...

Some families, alas, are fatter than others. But for dieters continually at war with their genes, there's good news in a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine: they can burn off 40% of their genetic predisposition to obesity by exercising. Led by Dr. Ruth Loos from the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, U.K., the study evaluated more than 20,000 Britons aged 39 to 79, asking about their exercise habits and surveying their genes. Researchers focused ...