Fewer and fewer Americans report trying to lose weight. We may be settling into our role as the one of the fattest countries on earth (we're coming for you, Tonga...). I can't help but think this is because of the many, many, many shitty options that people have had pushed on them that didn't work. Now they've given up. *sigh*

The search for the perfect artificial sweetener continues: 

"Let us pause here to acknowledge the sugar-frosted codependent embrace of Big Food and the American consumer. You could rightly fault consumers for their insistence on an oxymoronic product. But who has been indulging their fantasies for decades now, promising sweet, satisfying taste and no calories? Big Food, of course. Now customers are upping the stakes—and it’s not at all clear that companies can pass the test."

In what seems like a just reversal of a law that had the unintended consequence of highlighting the law of unintended consequences, after 60 years, street hockey will once again be legal in Hamilton, Ontario, under the following conditions:

• The roadway has a speed limit of 40 km/h or less and is a local road.
• Play happens in a place that is "safe and suitable."
• People play no earlier than 9 a.m. and no later than 8 p.m.
• No one plays during periods of limited visibility from fog, snow or rain.
• Play is stopped for any vehicles. ("Car!")

Having robot minions control the lights for them may be turning kids into a bunch of lazy, entitled monsters.

No one can get you to take your medicines but you. Three reminder devices to take your medications were no better than no notification or device in a randomized controlled trial. 

Go. To. Bed. People who get out of bed in the morning tend to eat better and earlier in the day than night owls. Original paper here.

"We found that night owls had postponed timing of food intake, and less favorable eating patterns with higher intakes of sucrose, fat and saturated fat in the evening hours than early birds," said Maukonen, a doctoral candidate in the department of public health solutions.