Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Not all bodies are made to be thin. For some people, a healthy weight is higher or lower than the average weight listed on weight charts.

Experts say the long-term success at weight loss requires a balance between diet and physical activity.

A Swedish study, over 29 years, finds 33 percent more cases of cancer among obese people than in the general population.

High blood cholesterol is one of the major risk factors for heart attack, the leading cause of death in America.

Diabetes occurs when there are high levels of glucose (sugar) in the blood. All three types of diabetes involve problems with insulin, a hormone that removes glucose from the blood and allows it to enter the body's cells. (The cells use it for energy.) If your body is unable to make or use insulin properly, you have a high blood glucose level.

Your risk of heart disease increases if you're more than 30 percent overweight. Obesity raises cholesterol, blood pressure, and can lead to diabetes, another risk factor for heart disease. You can reduce your risk for heart disease by losing as few as 10 pounds if you are overweight.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is the most common chronic adult illness in the United States. There is no cure for high blood pressure, but it can be controlled.

The American Diabetes Association estimates at least 20.1 million people in the United States have pre-diabetes. Pre-diabetes means having a blood sugar level that is higher than normal, but not yet persistently high enough to be considered type 2 diabetes. By taking steps to control your blood sugar, you can delay or prevent type 2 diabetes from developing.

Take this quiz to find out how to cut your risk of developing diabetes.

Using body mass index (BMI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) puts the definition of overweight at 25 to 29.9 BMI. A BMI of 30 and above qualifies a person as obese. A person with a BMI of 30 is about 30 pounds overweight, the equivalent of 221 pounds for a person who is 6 feet tall, or 186 pounds for someone who is 5-foot-6.

Research clearly shows that most diets don’t work. Even those of us who lose weight on a diet generally regain most or all of the weight within a couple of years.

True or false? Most overweight people got that way because they're self-indulgent weaklings without the will power to say no to super-sized french fries and fudge-slathered ice cream.

There is an epidemic of obesity in this country, health experts say. But what is obesity? How is it measured?

If you're trying to lose weight, here's good news: You can control your appetite and feel satisfied eating less food and fewer calories without feeling deprived.