Anyone who has suffered the pain of passing a kidney stone will want to do all they can to ensure new stones don’t form. Kidney stones are extremely common, with some 500,000 people requiring emergency treatment each year.

Though the actual cause of kidney stones is unknown, there are certain diet-related risk factors that might make someone more likely to suffer from them.

By reducing some of these foods from the diet it may be able to reduce or prevent the chances of new stones from forming.

According to nutritionists, dietitians, doctors and food gurus, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Why is this? Quite simply, it’s what we need to refuel our bodies with energy after our overnight fast.

Without breakfast, we lack the energy necessary to keep us going until lunch. But with today’s hectic lifestyles, too often we end up rushing out of the door with little more to sustain us than a cup of coffee.

Everyone, from the government to celebrities and catwalk models, have been blamed for the current obsession with size zero.

Despite the negative publicity size zero attracts, women still aspire to become thin or thinner than they currently are.Everyone, from the government to celebrities and catwalk models, have been blamed for the current obsession with size zero. Despite the negative publicity size zero attracts, women still aspire to become thin or thinner than they currently are.

Trying to lose weight is never enjoyable and must be one of life's hardest challenges. But it doesn't have to be. For many people, the first diet is never the last, simply because they fall into the same pitfalls time and again.

By avoiding the 10 biggest weight loss mistakes, you're far more likely to make your next diet a success.

Early sightings of  Michelle Obama's toned upper arms sent women everywhere scurrying for long sleeved tops. That flabby bit of skin which hangs beneath the upper arms, otherwise known as bingo wings, is notoriously difficult to shift. It's also an area of the body which women obsess about.

Losing the fat under your arms can’t be done overnight, but with the right combination of diet and exercise, it's possible to achieve noticeably improved results within a few weeks.

Childhood obesity has increased threefold over the last 30 years and is now so prevalent, that today’s youth run a greater risk of dying before their parents.

Around one in three children in the US are either overweight or obese and according to the American Heart Organization, have an 80 percent chance of remaining that way for the rest of their lives.

This not only places them at greater risk of obesity-related health complications, they face an overall reduced life expectancy. Obese children have a greater chance of experiencing one or more of the following obesity-related diseases, most of which can be avoided by changing lifestyle habits.

Sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy dietary habits have helped contribute to the growing prevalence of obesity among adults and children. In the US, a staggering one-third of children are now either overweight or obese.

One of the main contributors to this growing problem is the high fat content found in much of the food consumed by children. Swapping to a low fat diet can significantly help reduce the likelihood of children gaining weight as well as helping them feel fitter and healthier.

The Weight Watchers diet regime has gained worldwide recognition for helping dieters lose weight. With celebrities such as Fran Drescher, Lynn Redgrave and Sarah Ferguson all advocating its benefits, the diet has proved to be a winning formula. But what really makes Weight Watchers stand out from the host of other diets, is their unique Points® system. However, Weight Watchers have given their phenomenally successful points system an overhaul and in November 2010, launched the new POINTS® program.

Finding out your child has a peanut allergy can come as a shock and will be a cause of much anxiety for everyone concerned. Suddenly, making healthy food choices becomes a daunting task.

In an era where much of the food we consume is processed, it can seem that every food label warns against the possibility of nut contamination, even those that don’t have nuts as an ingredient!

Finding out you have raised cholesterol levels can be a shock, particularly since it can put you at higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack or stroke. Controlling your cholesterol levels can be done through medication.


However, one of the first suggestions often given by doctors, involves making changes to your diet to see whether this has any effect. Therefore, it's important to understand which foods are known to raise cholesterol levels in the body and actively start restricting them from your diet.

It's not always easy reducing the fat in the diet, but learning how to cook the low fat way is a good place to start. Many people cook using methods they were taught when growing up, which for some, could mean deep frying everything in unhealthy oil.

However, by making a few changes to the cooking methods used, it's possible to considerably reduce fat levels while making a far healthier and tasty meal.

With obesity levels at a record high, too many people have no idea how many calories they should be eating each day to keep them at a healthy weight.

The number of calories each individual needs can vary enormously from person to person, with factors such as weight, height, age, gender and activity levels all taken into consideration. Therefore, it can be particularly beneficial to calculate your daily caloric needs at regular intervals to help keep your weight steady.

Whether you’ve made the decision to try and improve your overall health or you just want to know if you’re a healthy weight, learning how to calculate your body mass index is a good place to start.

The BMI (Body Mass Index) is used by health professionals around the world and is the preferred method for checking whether you're within a healthy weight range for your height.

 There are several methods available for working out your BMI, so just choose whichever you prefer.

After weeks of dieting, many people reach the dreaded weight loss plateau, where the scales refuse to budge. There are several possibilities for this but one common reason is eating too many calories.Once you start losing weight you need to periodically readjust your calorie intake, usually downwards unless you've taken up a highly energetic sport!

Finding out how many calories you need to lose weight is quite straightforward. First, you figure out how many calories you use up in a day, then subtract the amount of calories you want to lose. Don't worry, it's not difficult but it will provide a helpful guide for shifting those stubborn pounds.

Since their inception over 40 years ago, Weight Watchers has helped millions of people lose weight. In response to the diet’s popularity, Weight Watchers launched their own range of food products, all displaying their calories and points value.

Of course there is plenty of competition among the popular diet foods and Weight Watchers doesn't come out on top all the time. However, there are many delicious Weight Watchers food products that are well worth trying out, even if you’re not watching your waistline.

Anyone choosing to follow the ‘official’ Mayo Clinic diet can't go far wrong, as long as they stick to it. The Mayo Clinic Diet isn't a diet as such, rather it's more of a healthy eating plan designed to be followed for life and is generally considered one of the most nutritionally sound diets around.

Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads

Anyone browsing through the dieting section in a bookstore could be forgiven for wondering how on earth to choose between them?

With the shelves groaning under the sheer volume of diet books, it takes something pretty special to make a book stand out enough to be picked up. In the case of this book, Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads, the title is clever, catchy and intriguing. It certainly warrants further investigation.

With ever increasing levels of obesity in the western world, the calorie count of our food is of paramount importance and something we should all pay heed to. After all, it’s the number of calories we consume that determines our weight. So how can you go about finding the amount of calories in foods?

Cooking for a low fat diet doesn’t have to mean the end of tasty meals. Indeed, once you’ve become accustomed to cooking the low fat way, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start earlier. The health benefits of eating a low fat diet are immense but if you’re not used to cooking this way, you may find a few low fat cooking tips will help make your transition a little smoother.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could go to sleep at night only to wake up in the morning several pounds lighter?  As yet there is no magic weight loss formula allowing us to slumber away the pounds. But recent studies have found that our sleep patterns can have a bearing on our weight.

Does this mean we really lose weight while sleeping?