The Checkup: Ticked Off, Obesity Doc Rails Against Food Industry on YouTube (VIDEO)

• Everything started off friendly enough when obesity doctor Yoni Freedhoff was invited to speak to food industry execs at a breakfast in Toronto. Three days before the event, however—”after, of course, the flights were booked, and the hotels were booked, and I canceled a whole bunch of patients,” he says—he was suddenly disinvited. Over email. So the good doctor, who writes a blog called Weighty Matters, did what any social-media savvy person in the 21st century would do: he took to YouTube, recording a voice-over video of himself giving the presentation he’d prepared for the food industry folks. “Why don’t I put it up there,” he wonders aloud on the video, “and maybe I’ll reach more people than I would have had I been able to come?” So that’s just what he did—and so far, his message has reached over 162,000 people. And let me tell you, he certainly doesn’t mince words when it comes to what the food industry could do to better public healthy but surely won’t, since they almost always put the bottom line before actual people. Watch Freedhoff’s video below to see for yourself.

• Hey parents, if your kid’s been bugging you to put a TV in his room, go with your gut: just say no. A new study found that kids with television sets in their rooms tend to watch more TV, of course, but also have more belly fat, higher triglycerides and overall greater risk of developing heart disease and diabetes than kids who only watch TV in the family room. The LA Times has more.

• Hooray! We’re living longer lives than ever before, with our life expectancy ticking ever upwards. But boo, we’re also way less healthy than our forefathers. Which means all we’ve managed to do is prolong battles with awful diseases like diabetes. I ask you: where’s the fun in that?