Women who are overweight face many health risks, such as heart disease and type II diabetes. And Martha recently told us how overweight women tend to be more impulsive. But overweight women face some risks you might not expect:

• Being fired. Could it be because people who are overweight have a higher rate of absenteeism? Or is it because of a prejudice? It's hard to pinpoint the reasons why, but medical research shows that overweight women run a higher risk of losing their jobs.
• Being the victim of a crime. Overweight women run a greater risk of being victims of crimes. They're also more likely to become criminals.
• Financial woes. Overweight women are more likely to find themselves broke.

It's a chicken and the egg situation, really. Is a woman's weight causing these negative life events or are the negative events causing stress that leads to overeating and obesity?

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If you're a woman, your weight may indicate how successful you are at controlling your impulses. Specifically, obese women are more impulsive than normal weight women. They're also less likely to settle for time delays in gratification.

The study reporting this finding also looked at men, but men don't show the same level of impulsiveness, regardless of the numbers on the scale.

In the case of women, researchers say weight isn't the effect but rather the cause. It makes sense -- impulsive women are quicker to gain weight because they have more difficulty ignoring their impulses, also known as their cravings. Unfortunately, being impulsive is not something I think you can easily change. What do you think?

(via Calorie Lab)

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I know it shouldn't, but it does usually seem like part of starting a new "healthy eating" effort means making some extra room in the grocery budget. But according to new information most people, when dieting, really need to add "impulse items" to their list of expenses.

A study recently took two groups of people and asked one group to write down all their thoughts for 6 minutes, while another group was asked to do the same while trying not to think specifically of a 'white bear.' The group that made the effort to control their thoughts ended up spending more later, by a pretty big margin, than those who didn't.

So does this mean we only have a certain amount of self-control to use for any given day? If you use it for eating healthy, you can't control your spending, but if you control spending you're gonna cheat on your diet...

Hmm, I'm in trouble then -- I need to eat healthy and watch my budget! I'll have to figure out some other area in my life where I can afford to really "blow it." Wish me luck!

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